Not Selphie
by Queen000
Summary: When it was just one SeeD, there wasn't a problem; people just acted like nothing happened. But after an important person fell too, they got right to work trying to fix it. Irvine just wished they could've acted when it had first happened.
1. Not Selphie

_I posted this story once before as a one-shot, which is how I intended it to be. But I started to notice that it was scaring people away by it's monstrous length - about 35K words and roughly 80 pages in microsoft word. Since posting the story, I made the mental decision that if it proved to be too long as a one-shot, that I would separate it into a multi-chaptered story. It makes me sad though; I had originally intended this as a one-shot, specifically because I didn't want to break up the tension in the story. Unfortunately if I want feed back and constructive criticism, it looks like that is what I have to do, since it appears as though not a lot of people like to read long stories. _

_Still, I'd like to thank the two people who reviewed this story before I took it down and reposted it in this format. I appreciated your feedback, and am grateful that you took the time to review, despite the story length. To the rest of you, I hope you enjoy this story._

_**Disclaimer: **I do not own Final Fantasy VIII or it's characters. Squaresoft/Square-Enix has that honour. I do however own the idea._

* * *

It had been a few months since Ultimecia, the Sorceress of the future, had tried to compress time. Soon after her defeat, the Galbadians, having no one to take orders from, withdrew to their home country with their proverbial tails between their legs. The Estharians, having already endured seventeen years of xenophobia, believed that now was the time to open their boarders once more to the world.

There was no rest of the weary, however; Garden simply got back up and went back to their mercenary life – with Garden Master Norg having been disposed of, their financial situation was looking rather bleak. Even with the Sorceress threat gone, SeeD found themselves involved in further disputes between neighbouring or not so closely affiliated countries. Despite the bleak money situation, Garden was receiving mission requests to keep Galbadians from overtaking other countries in the region, and numerous mishaps had already broken out between both Esthar and Galbadia. Needless to say, the Garden officials, their Commander and even the Headmaster had their hands full.

Aside from work, though, things seemed to be steadily returning to normal, but also there were changes amidst the routine. For instance, Rinoa Heartilly, now the only Sorceress in the world (that anyone knew of), was staying at the Garden. Most disagreed with this decision, but since her boyfriend just so happened to be the Garden Commander, the complaints weren't nearly as vocal as they would have been in other circumstances. Irvine Kinneas, the sharpshooter from Galbadia Garden, had put in for a transfer that was taking forever in a T-Rexaurs age to process. Despite Martine's protests that this was standard procedure, Irvine was fairly certain the former ousted Master wasn't pulling enough strings.

The reason for the transfer was simple; out of everyone in the orphanage group from so long ago (aside from Ellone of course), Irvine was the only one who actually remembered their time together; the reason being constant Guardian Force usage. Since Galbadia Garden only trained their students in weapon usage and tactics, Irvine hadn't had his memories affected. He'd tried them during the war against Ultimecia, but he wasn't exactly thrilled about continuing their usage, and a big part of why was he didn't want to forget his childhood. Despite what the others said about having the power to protect those they cared about, there was no point in using it if they couldn't remember who exactly those people were.

There was another reason for his sticking around, and he couldn't help but notice that it was the one everyone else thought about constantly. He'd had a crush on her since they were living in the orphanage and as many conquests as he'd had in the past; he'd never truly forgotten Selphie Tilmitt. When even she didn't remember him, he'd fallen into a depression that had lasted a little while; the real reason he'd requested that everyone just leave him alone on the way to Deling City. But in the end the others had been able to remember their time in the orphanage.

Irvine sighed loudly; currently he was lying in the quad and watching the sky above, the clouds moving at a snail's crawl across the blue atmosphere. He was bored, and everyone else seemed to have things they had to take care of. Zell Dincht, another member of the team that had defeated Ultimecia, had only just come back from a mission earlier on that day and he'd immediately locked himself in his room for some much needed rest. Quistis Trepe, having re-obtained her instructor's licence, was busy grading papers for her classes, what with the fall term and all. Rinoa had gone into town to pick up supplies and, well, there really was no need to wonder why Squall wasn't available. His normal cloud watching partner was missing; Selphie had left for a mission a week ago and wasn't scheduled to be back for another couple weeks. Needless to repeat an already quoted phrase, the cowboy was bored.

He'd opted to go cloud watching anyway – it was something to do – but that had been a few hours ago. Now he was ready to do something else, but to be honest there wasn't anything else to do. Sure, he could go into the Training Centre, but he wasn't all that equipped for it. Unlike Galbadia Garden, Balamb was specifically designed to handle students utilizing the powers of the GF's, so the monsters they'd chosen were more difficult than what he was used to handling. Besides; he was a sharpshooter – the only way he could get some real training in was if someone with close ranged training went with him.

Then there was the option of getting someone to train against him; he was always better with working against people than he was with monsters, but that would involve actually getting someone to participate; the same problem as option A. Sighing again, he tried to think of the things he normally would do on these off days, but pushed them all aside; most of them involved the female half of the human race, and now that he'd been reunited with Selphie he wasn't all that keen on looking elsewhere for some tail. Those days were over as far as he was concerned, but that didn't mean he couldn't catch a gander now and then.

His mind made up, he pulled himself to his full height of 6 feet and stalked out of the quad, the soles of his brown boots hitting the tiled floor beneath him with a dull thud as he moved. The beige trench coat he was always seen wearing swished behind him and his cowboy hat – he wouldn't be caught dead without it of course – was pulled low over his eyes for a kind of dramatic effect. After walking for a few minutes, he allowed himself to collapse into the wooden bench just across the library, his arms draped along the back of the bench as he sat leisurely. When he'd first set foot inside the Garden during the Sorceress War, he'd marvelled at the beauty of the place. Sure, it was considerably smaller than Galbadia Garden (after all, everything in Galbadia had to be bigger), but there was no doubt that it was just as magnificent looking.

And the girls who attended the garden were all stunning in their own light.

He nodded at the occasional passer-by (majority of the time it was the aforementioned girls), and even some of the male students nodded in greeting (he wasn't interested, but there was nothing wrong with being polite and all). He'd never gotten a clear idea of just what everyone's opinion of him was; he knew quite plainly how they felt about a Sorceress living under their roof, but he wasn't exactly in home territory himself. He'd never had it in mind to become a SeeD; he'd actually been playing around with the idea of joining the Galbadian military some day, but now he wasn't even so sure of that.

It was getting later on in the day when Irvine finally decided he was bored enough to ask anybody who'd be interested to play a game of Triple Triad (mostly his rule was to play against girls only). He'd only just gotten up from the bench when he saw someone familiar descend the stairs in front of the elevator. He didn't need to look twice though; he recognized the fur collared beater jacket anywhere, but just as he'd been about to wave the SeeD over, he stopped himself. Judging by just how fast he climbed down the stairs, Squall was in a hurry; no doubt it was SeeD business. But just as he was about to move along and mind his own business, Squall noticed him and called him over, shocking the teenager slightly. When he didn't respond right away, it was the SeeD who stalked over to him. "Where's the fire?" Irvine asked cordially.

The look on the young Commander's face told the sharpshooter that now was not the time for his bluster. Had that failed, then the tone in his voice would have dropped the hint. "I'm heading to the Front Gate," he said. "You should probably come with me."

"Why's that?" Irvine asked. Squall shook his head and started at a brisk pace, the Galbadian barely able to catch up to him. "What's goin' on?"

"I just received contact from a team returning to the Garden." Squall stated. "Apparently something went wrong; I'm not in a position where I can tell you the details, but I think you ought to know."

Irvine stopped suddenly, causing the shorter male to do the same a few steps ahead. It was very rare that Squall was that willing to talk about a SeeD team, especially if they were on a mission. Even the little he did tell him was abnormal, and the fact that he thought Irvine should know was really strange. "Why's that?" he asked.

Squall seemed to pause before answering; probably searching for the right way to answer (it was a bad habit everyone had been trying to pull him out of), but it wasn't long before he spoke. "…Because the situation involves Selphie."

At first Irvine didn't think he'd heard him right, but by the time he replayed the response through his head he realized he'd already started moving of his own accord, slightly ahead of the Garden Commander. Soon, they'd reached the front gate, passing the turnstiles as well as the security guard at his station before moving out into the cold. It was nearing the end of November and while Balamb never saw snow aside from the snow-caps of the surrounding mountains, it was just as equally bitter. Irvine found himself wishing for a jacket, even as Squall pulled the fur lining up around his ears and zipped up the jacket. Irvine followed suit before following him.

By the time they arrived at the front gate, the Ragnarok was touching down onto the grassy plains just beyond the golden gates. Irvine noticed a small congregation around the gates; there was Xu and Cid Kramer, the Lieutenant Commander and Headmaster respectively, as well as Nida who piloted the Garden, Dr. Kadowaki, Garden's head physician, and a few other SeeDs Irvine didn't know by name. He guessed that they might be there to assist the doctor though.

The Ragnarok finally completed its landing process and a moment later the hanger door opened, the top of the door landing along the dirt just before the road leading into the garage. Another moment passed, Irvine wondering just what had happened on this mission, when the SeeD team emerged from the ship; one girl with curly brown hair and one guy with braided black hair, both in civilian clothing (the girl wore a brown winter jacket and a pair of black jeans; the guy in a navy blue jacket wearing blue jeans. Slung up on his back was the third member of the team…

"Selphie!" Irvine called out, but before he could go any closer, Squall pulled him back, shaking his head when the taller boy turned to regard him.

Selphie Tilmitt was being supported by her team-mate; her arms hanging limply over his shoulders as he kept her supported with his arms behind her knees. From what he could tell, Irvine figured she hadn't dressed appropriately for the weather (Selphie rarely did in fact); wearing a pair of jeaned mini-shorts with a yellow winter jacket draped across the top half of her body. Irvine could never figure out how she could manage (he'd forever asked how she could possibly be comfortable wearing a yellow sundress in the middle of the Trabian Tundra without ever having received a response). Her head was resting against the SeeD member's shoulder; her short brown hair hanging in front of her face. However, as soon as the team had descended the ramp the group of SeeDs who had been waiting immediately went about their duties; taking her off the SeeD member's hands and laying her on a stretcher before bringing her inside the Garden. Irvine caught a glimpse of her, even as Squall went to speak to Nida and the rest of Selphie's team, and hadn't liked what he'd seen; she looked almost dead, skin slightly paler than he'd remembered it being. The Selphie he'd known had been vibrating full of life, but seeing her so still just seemed so very wrong.

After a moment of simply standing there watching her being brought inside of the building before him, he realized he wasn't alone; Squall was now standing beside him as Dr. Kadowaki followed after the team of SeeDs and Xu and Cid escorted the remaining members of Selphie's team inside. Irvine suspected that Nida had been charged with parking the Ragnarok; given the circumstance.

"What happened to her?" Irvine finally asked after a moment. Squall shook his head in response; a bad sign if he didn't even know.

"I need to ask you a couple of questions, though," Squall stated. Irvine didn't spare him a glance. "Since you were the last one with her before she left on her mission."

Irvine didn't say anything; didn't know what to say to a statement like that. Never had he thought a situation like this could've happened, but thinking about it, he knew it was inevitable, what with their line of work. Four of his closest friends had chosen this profession, and right now one of them could be fighting for her life.

The walk back inside of the Garden was a blur; before he knew it he was in the warm hall instead of outside freezing his ass off. Still, they didn't stop there; they continued passed the elevator down the left hand path leading towards the infirmary; Irvine knew this simply because it was the obvious place he would head to next, especially after knowing what had happened.

"How was Selphie when you last saw her?" Squall finally asked. The hallways seemed desolate; probably emptied when the SeeDs had set off to the infirmary. Irvine could only imagine the result of seeing one of their own on a stretcher; especially should the hallways have been filled with students. No doubt Xu or Dr. Kadowaki had broken up the crowd and ordered the students away.

"Same as always," Irvine finally answered at great length. He remembered the last time he'd seen her vividly, specifically since they'd had an argument. It wasn't a big one, but it had been enough to make them equally furious at each other for a large chunk of the day. By the next morning, however, Irvine had cooled down enough to want to talk to her, but since she'd already left, it was kind of hard to laugh it off. "She was healthy."

"There wasn't anything strange with her?"

"Nothing," Irvine retorted. "Why are you askin' me this?"

Squall sighed heavily before answering. "We're trying to rule out possibilities. Right now we don't know what happened to her, and I want to make sure there wasn't any kind of warning for this."

"What about her team-mates?" Irvine pointed out. "Wouldn't they know?"

"They're waiting in my office right now. I'm going to question and debrief them shortly, but I wanted to ask you before we rule anything else out."

"I can go see her right?" Irvine asked. "Dr. Kadowaki will let me in?"

"I can't guarantee anything, especially since we don't know why she's unconscious, but judging by the fact that her team-mates haven't collapsed, I doubt there'll be a problem. We'll keep an eye on them though, just to be sure."

Irvine sighed in relief, just as they made the turn that would take them to the infirmary. The door's motion sensor kicked in just when they were a couple feet away and slid open automatically, granting them access and they continued along another bridge, the windows along the sides allowing the descending sun's lights to illuminate the hall. Moving towards another door, Irvine frowned when it remained closed, however Squall quickly typed in a code and the doors slid open.

The infirmary itself was fairly large; with enough room to fit roughly a quarter of the Garden inside if need be. Fortunately the only time where they'd actually needed to utilize the space had been during the Garden War in Centra. Right now, it was mostly empty, save for Dr. Kadowaki and her assisting staff. The SeeDs who had brought her along were currently being examined by the staff, in case her condition really was contagious.

Dr. Kadowaki immediately looked up and noticed the two standing in her doorway and ushered them inside. Irvine had been concerned that they would be turned away and was happily surprised by the actual outcome, though he supposed Squall's rank had something to do with that.

"We're running blood tests right now, and prepping an MRI in case the problem is neurological." She started immediately; neither one had had to make a sound, which left Irvine wondering if this was a regular occurrence. "We won't know the results of the blood test for a few days, but the MRI results will probably be in by midday tomorrow at the latest."

"Are you allowing visitors?" Squall asked the question Irvine was afraid to.

Another surprise; Dr. Kadowaki nodded. "Only if you're up for an examination afterwards; we have to be careful not to let this thing spread if it is contagious."

"Wouldn't it be better if there weren't any visitations?" Irvine surprised everyone by asking this question. "If it was contagious, I'd be stuck in here too."

"I know from past experiences that if there are going to be visitors, then there are going to be visitors." Dr. Kadowaki stated. "As long as the proper procedures are followed, I don't see the trouble. If it does turn out to be contagious, we'll do the best we can to figure out what it is before it spreads too far."

"Wouldn't that be a bad thing?" Irvine asked.

"I understand and appreciate your concern Irvine, but I don't actually believe that it's contagious at all." Dr. Kadowaki said. "If it was, then her team-mates would have collapsed before they returned to Garden. We're just taking precautions; that's all."

She turned back to the Commander before speaking once again. "I'll let you know as soon as the results have come in."

Squall nodded and after a moment he left the room, most likely wanting to question the two team-mates.

"I'm afraid the visit'll have to be short," Dr. Kadowaki said. "We're almost ready for the MRI, but as soon as it's done, I can let you back in to see her."

Irvine nodded and took a set beside Selphie's bedside and simply watched her for the next few minutes.

…

It was a few hours later before Irvine had finally been able to return to the infirmary. Dr. Kadowaki had set a time limit to visitation hours simply because she didn't want visitors spending the night ("What if someone else got hurt and needed a bed?"), so by the time he returned it was nearing eleven thirty. He'd had to leave a half hour later, and he'd only been granted the extra half hour because Dr. Kadowaki had promised that he could come back. He'd gone to bed shortly afterwards.

By morning though, everyone knew the basics of what had happened; something had happened to Selphie and now she was unconscious and resting in the infirmary. Zell, Quistis and Rinoa had been devastated to hear about it and had each taken turns checking in on her in the event that she might mysteriously wake up. All night long Irvine had had strange dreams about her just jumping out of bed as though nothing had happened. He'd woken up each time realizing he'd only imagined it.

An investigation was taking place, but Irvine began to notice that, as the days went by and no reasonable explanation for Selphie's condition had been presented, everyone seemed to slowly go back to their own lives; almost as though none of this was happening. While normally cool tempered and easy going, Irvine couldn't help but become both frustrated and angered by the sudden coldness. The only one who seemed to give a damn at all was Dr. Kadowaki, but Irvine suspected it was only because she was the doctor overseeing the case. He also began to notice that even his friends seemed to care less and less, and that made him even angrier.

So it was on the fifth day when Irvine finally decided that enough was enough; that he would get results done even if he had to go over everyone's heads. He woke up as early as he possibly could (which was actually easy considering he'd gone to be earlier in order to avoid everyone else) and took the elevator up to the third floor of the Garden, where the higher ups' offices were. He was thankful that Cid had decided, for convenience sake, to leave the mechanism that would lock the rest of the Garden out of the third floor shut off for the higher ups to get to their offices easier and get started on their work. He leaned against the double doors that lead into the main hall, tapping his booted foot against the floor rapidly and disturbing the otherwise silent surroundings. Checking his watch, he knew that the person he was waiting for should be due any moment, and that if he had to he would wait all day for him to show up, simply because he had nothing better to do. Normally he would have been visiting with Selphie by then, but honestly he couldn't stand to watch as nothing got done about her situation.

Finally, he heard foot falls down the hall, and looked up just as he caught sight of a familiar pair of boots stopping further away from him. His hat obscured some of his vision, but he was still able to make out the Commander of Garden, even as the other teenager resumed his walk towards the office. "What're you doing here so early?" he asked.

Irvine forced his expression to be as neutral as possible as he straightened up, even as Squall unlocked the door and moved to enter. "I need to talk to you about something."

"Obviously," Squall said, and Irvine had to admit he was sort of stating the obvious. "What is it?"

Irvine couldn't believe he had the gall to ask him that, especially as straight faced as he was. Was he the only one who was honestly concerned about this whole thing? "It's about Selphie."

Squall must have seen this coming, because he sighed loudly, even as he managed to open the door leading to his office. "An investigation is underway; we're doing the best we can under the circumstances."

"Well, I'm sorry, but it doesn't seem like you are." Irvine pointed out. "It sounds to me that you've given up. And I'm not just talking about you; I'm talkin' about everyone."

"That's not it at all." Squall argued. "There are many things we've had to focus on, and I'm sorry it seems like we've put Selphie on a back burner, but that's not the case."

"I noticed that no one's visited her as much as they used to." Irvine continued. "But she's still alive, Squall, and I think she'd be hurt to know her friends, her _closest_ friends especially, are treating her this way."

"Irvine," Squall started, but Irvine cut him off.

"No Squall, let me finish. Just because you guys don't remember that much about the orphanage doesn't mean it didn't happen. And I don't wanna hear excuses; that you're all busy, because I've been down there all the time during visiting hours. I haven't seen any one of you come in to visit with her for the last few days. I know ya'll have lives to run and jobs to do, but five minutes won't kill ya. And this so called investigation that's being run isn't helping things. And yeah, I did say 'so-called', because I haven't seen any results, because I'm fairly certain there haven't been any results. We're nowhere near close to finding out why she's layin' like she is in the infirmary; just that it's not contagious or neurological. And I'm tired of sitting on my thumbs, wondering what's going on. If I have to figure it out on my own, then I will, but I just thought I'd let you know how disgusted I am with everyone in this damned Garden."

For his part, Squall simply watched and waited for Irvine to finish, his expression unreadable, and it was only when Irvine paused for a long period of time that Squall finally spoke. "Can I talk now?"

If he hadn't been so floored by those four simple words, Irvine probably would've slugged him. Squall seemed to take Irvine's silence as an affirmative, because he continued. "I understand how you feel, and I'm not going to make excuses, because simply put we could have taken the time to visit, even for a few minutes. I can't speak for the others, so I won't, but I do feel bad about it. As for the investigation, there have been other things that have needed to be addressed, Garden related for the most part. Despite what's happened to Selphie, we can't just drop everything just because we wouldn't want to hurt her feelings."

"You sonova…" Irvine started, but Squall held up a hand.

"Now it's your turn to let _me_ finish." He said in a tone that brook no argument. "As much as I agree Selphie wouldn't be happy that her friends are abandoning her, which by the way we haven't, I also have to argue that she wouldn't want the Garden to stop what they're doing just to look after her. We'd fall apart if that happened. Despite having so much to do though, we are making some progress, however long it may be taking, but these things do take time."

Irvine's anger was ebbed away just by that declaration; they'd made some kind of progress. It meant that they hadn't really forgotten about her after all and as much as he felt like an idiot for believing they had, he still thought they should be taking the whole thing a little more seriously. It was refreshing to know that at least Squall was. "What did you find out?"

Another loud sigh. "Officially, I can't tell you."

"Oh come on!" Irvine said, more out of frustration than out of anger. "You can't just tell me you've made progress and then not tell me what's going on."

Squall simply moved passed him and headed to the door, (the object sliding open as the motion sensors detected movement) looking out into the hall for a moment before typing in a code on the locking mechanism to the right. The door slid shut and an audible 'clicking' noise signalled that it had been locked. Turning around, he fixed Irvine with the most serious expression he'd ever seen and the rest of his argument had died in his throat. "_Officially_, I can't tell you, because it concerns a mission that is still classified. _Unofficially_, the mission has ended, however because of the situation with Selphie; we are not publicly releasing _any_ information because she has not yet been debriefed. Her team-mates have, however she was in charge of the mission and thus we need her statement. That can't be done until she's regained consciousness. _If_ I were to tell you anything at all, I could lose my rank and possibly my SeeDship, because I would be allowing classified information to slip to someone without the clearance to access it. In the worst case scenario, I could be imprisoned and even charged with treason should anyone learn of my actions."

It was then that Irvine realized what Squall was telling him. _Officially_ he wasn't able to tell him anything, due to Client-Garden confidentiality. Squall was telling him the risks of such an action simply because he was prepared to tell him, so long as the sharpshooter kept his mouth shut. Irvine made a visual sweep of the room, making sure that there was no sign of evidence that would give them up and realized at that moment why Squall locked the door before explaining himself further. Irvine nodded; a silent affirmation that whatever happened in the office stayed there. Squall nodded back, having understood before moving passed Irvine to get to his desk. "Have a seat." He said simply before taking the one behind his desk.

Irvine plopped down in a chair, Squall running a hand through his hair in a feeble attempt to keep it out of his face before he started talking. "The mission Selphie was on was to assist the authorities in Timber in capturing and detaining a murderer. Within the few days before the request for SeeD's assistance, four people had been victimized; obviously there were no survivors. Garden responded and sent a three-man cell in accordance with the contract negotiations that were set and met. The contract we had with the Timber authorities was to expire once the perpetrator was apprehended or killed.

"According to the debriefing we received from the rest of the team, they quickly managed to locate their suspect and were able to connect them to the crimes, so they proceeded with the arrest warrant, but the suspect apparently fled. Selphie was separated from the team, but when they finally found her, the suspect was deceased and Selphie was unconscious. Rather than wait for the murders to stop before returning, they immediately contacted Garden to alert us of the situation and I myself advised the Timber authorities to contact us should the murders start up again."

"Have they?" Irvine asked after a moment, just to connect the dots rather than out of any genuine curiosity.

"They haven't contacted us, so it's assumed that the murders have stopped, yes." Squall answered.

"So… what's happened to Selphie?"

"We don't have anything to else go on, aside from the knowledge that Selphie collapsed after coming into contact with the murder suspect." Squall explained. "Our first assumption was that he'd poisoned her; some poisons are slow acting, and depending on the dosage, could put her in a state of unconsciousness rather than simply kill her, but we've dismissed it for two reasons. One, if the killer was responsible for her condition, he wouldn't have poisoned her, he would have just killed her instead. Two, Dr. Kadowaki ordered a tox-screen to be sure, but when we received the results, there was no evidence to suggest that she'd been poisoned at all."

"So we still don't know what happened to her," Irvine said. Squall nodded in response.

"We were sure that, since you didn't report anything out of the ordinary with her, it had to have something to do with the mission, but that didn't pan out. I still think it might have had something to do with it, but there's no real way to connect the two events together, aside from the fact that it happened once the suspect was dead."

"What about getting the autopsy report from Timber?" Irvine suggested. Squall shook his head.

"Already tried that. The result shows that the suspect died in a confrontation. Possibly against Selphie."

"Doesn't that seem strange to you though?" Irvine asked. "I mean, the suspect gets killed, probably because Selphie killed him, and then she's suddenly out of it for almost a week."

"I know what it suggests, but there's no proof that it happened that way." Squall said. "And I haven't heard of anyone being able to attack someone after they died."

"What if it didn't happen after, but just before?"

"With the wounds the suspect suffered, I don't think he could have done much of _anything_ before he died, let alone attack a junctioned SeeD."

"So that's it then?" Irvine asked, his frustration returning. "That's all we have? There's nothing we can use to figure out why Selphie's unconscious?"

"Honestly, we haven't come up with another theory." Squall admitted.

"So back to square one then."

Squall cleared his throat, interrupting Irvine in the process, but the expression on his face was one of patience rather than of annoyance. "Before you launch into another tirade, let me just save you the trouble and tell you that I've been doing some additional digging outside of work to get to the bottom of this. So far, I haven't been able to find anything else out, but I'll let you know as soon as I do."

Irvine opened his mouth to say something but snapped it shut out of shock. The fact that someone else was actually going to do something aside from him was almost too much to take. His body acted without his volition, however, and asked the question he had not been actually prepared to ask. "Why?"

Squall arched an eyebrow in response. "Why?" he echoed.

With much more determination than he'd had when he first asked, he repeated himself, "Why?"

"Because I know how it feels," Squall answered in a steady voice, without hesitation. "to watch someone you care about lying on a bed almost lifeless, without a clue as to how it happened or why; never knowing whether they'll come out of it or if they're going to die like that, or whether you're going crazy asking yourself the same questions and wondering whether or not you really want to know the answer to any of them."

At first, Irvine didn't know what he was talking about, but he was suddenly reminded a moment later when he thought about Rinoa; how she'd fallen into a comatose state no one had thought she would awaken from after the very last time they'd had to fight Edea. He remembered how often Squall had visited the infirmary despite his duties as the Garden's Commander weighing him down (which had involved leaving the Garden on a couple of instances). He remembered how he had been so desperate to bring her back that he'd kidnapped her and had walked the distance from Fisherman's Horizon, using the train tracks leading from the eastern continent as a bridge, and trekking it on foot to Esthar in order to find some form of cure.

He did know how he felt; because he'd been in the exact same position before.

"Thank you," Irvine said and honestly he meant it. Knowing that there was someone who was on his side, willing to go through the lengths that he himself would go to find a solution for someone they cared about was enough to lift the weight he'd been carrying on his shoulders.

Squall didn't respond; simply rising to his feet and moving towards the filing cabinet on the left hand side of the room. He pulled out a file folder and placed it on his desk; no doubt the folder was filled with paperwork he would have to fill out.

However, just as Irvine opened the door to let himself out, Squall did say something at last; "Get some rest Irvine."

Smiling for the first time in a few days, Irvine figured he'd take the advice.

…

Two days had passed since he'd spoken to Squall in his office, and true to his word, Squall did put some time aside to work on figuring out what was wrong with Selphie. Irvine knew this because they met at the library around the same time; after six and until nine at night, both he and the Commander sifted through the books in the library, searching for any kind of malady both magic based or natural that would explain Selphie's condition. When nine o'clock rolled on by, Squall would leave so that he would be able to get up early the following morning. Irvine would stay behind until the library had to close at eleven and head to bed himself. He was slightly resentful that no one else had volunteered their time, but as Squall had told him, everyone couldn't just drop everything just to solve this mystery.

The previous night though, Squall had surprised him, suggesting that Irvine go visit with Selphie while he continued looking up the symptoms and after some major pestering, Irvine finally relented and did just that. The sharpshooter had been a little tired after a full week of investigating and emotional turmoil and had chosen to head to bed early that night. He figured that that was what Squall had been up to all along; Squall seemed to be able to figure out when other people needed a break, and had even pointed out that the sharpshooter needed to get some more rest. He was grateful he'd taken the advice; he woke up feeling more rejuvenated than he had in a while. There was even a small spring in his step as he got himself dressed and prepared to visit with Selphie once again.

However, when he emerged from the dorm room he was staying in, he noticed something was wrong; there was a congregation of students and SeeD members' alike hanging around the hallway outside of the Dormitories and quickly closing the door behind him, he jogged over, wondering what the commotion was. The crowd seemed to stretch towards the Training Centre, and he began wading through the masses of people trying to get a better look. It was then that he suddenly heard Xu's voice over the clambering of the people milling around.

"Break it up, everyone! SeeD members and cadets; report back to your dormitories immediately. An announcement will be made shortly on the situation, but you can't stay here!"

Even as several students and SeeDs made their way back to their dorms, Irvine just had to figure out what was going on. But when he got closer, he realized that Xu was not alone; he could barely make out Dr. Kadowaki's voice over the complaints of the people around him.

"…still alive, but we won't know how long he's been like this until we get a look at those security cameras."

"We need to keep a lid on this," Xu stated, the tone of voice authoritative. "Someone needs to contact the Headmaster and alert him on the situation. No one is to go into the infirmary until I say so."

Forcing his way through the movement of students was slowly becoming easier the closer he got; most of them had already done as told by the time he neared the front of the line, and what he could barely see made him speed up all the more. Kadowaki was leaning over a body that had been propped up against the wall, probably checking over it to make sure there were no injuries, but what little he saw of the body made him want to investigate. He finally reached a point where he could see it all clearly, but he stopped in shock as he took in the scene before him.

Xu's back was to him, her hands on her hips as she watched more students and SeeDs on the opposite side disperse, though they weren't heading to their dorms like they had been instructed. Dressed in her SeeD uniform, she looked just as commanding as ever; possibly even more so. Dr. Kadowaki was still wearing her white lab coat overtop her work clothes, but it was the prone body she was propped over that caught him off guard. The person's face was obscured; hair hanging in the way, but all Irvine needed to see were the clothes; black jeans and boots, and a black fur collared beater jacket overtop gloves and a white shirt.

It was Squall.

Before he could properly react, however, Xu chose that moment to turn around and her expression darkened considerably as she looked right at him. "You," she snapped; her tone sharp. "Come with me. Right now."

For the second time in the last two days, Irvine found himself up on the third floor, though it was under different circumstances. Much like Squall's office, Xu's was immaculately neat aside from her desk, which was covered in papers and file folders. As Xu entered, her pace stayed the same brisk speed as she moved towards her desk, the door closing behind Irvine with an audible clicking noise. A moment later, Xu pushed all the files and papers on her desk to one side before sinking into her chair, her expression still as cold as it had been during the last few minutes.

Irvine would have sat down, but he was afraid the chairs might bite if he did, so he remained standing. After a moment of terse silence, Xu finally spoke. "Just what the hell do you think you're playing at?"

Irvine must have looked confused, because Xu's expression darkened considerably. "The situation was being looked into; we were handling it just fine. I don't know what in Hyne's name _possessed_ you to think you had the right, the _privilege_, to go around us the way you did, but I assure you your actions have not gone unnoticed."

The sharpshooter didn't have a clue as to what she was talking about but he figured he could gander a guess. "What are you talking about?"

Xu slammed both palms of her hands atop the surface of her desk as she rose to her feet. "I am talking about your little meeting with Squall two days ago. Just because he locked his door doesn't mean we don't know what it was you were talking about."

"You weren't doing anything about it," Irvine protested, though he noticed how she'd addressed her superior. At least he knew what she was so angry about now.

"We were doing all we could, given the circumstances."

"What circumstances?"

"That we didn't know, and still don't for that matter, what was causing Operative Tilmitt's condition."

Irvine folded his arms across his chest defiantly. "If you're worried about it being contagious, Dr. Kadowaki already ruled it out."

"While that may be the case, that information does not bring us any closer to knowing what exactly it is. For all we know, it could have been some form of timed contagion; expected to go off after a certain amount of time."

Irvine frowned slightly; he hadn't thought of that at all. Still, he didn't want her to know that. "Don't ya think that's grasping at straws?"

"What neither you nor Squall seem to have gotten through your thick skulls," Xu snapped, "is that SeeD must be prepared for _any_ situation. That includes variables that may just be a stretch. How likely is it that someone from the future tries to influence the past by compressing time?"

Irvine snapped his mouth shut; she had him there.

"I could have you court martialled and removed for your actions, however it wasn't just your actions that caused this." Xu said. "For the record, and this does not go any further from this room, Squall felt that we weren't doing enough either. He was warned by both Headmaster Kramer and myself that it was unwise to just continue the search without caution, but obviously he was too closely involved to listen."

"If you knew about it, then why didn't you stop us?" Irvine asked curiously. "If you thought it was so dangerous, why didn't you do anything?"

"Because, for your information, I only learned about it _after_ I learned what had happened this morning." Xu stated. "I searched the security tapes, looking for any sign of just what had happened, though I'd already suspected he'd just ignored the Headmaster and my own advice to him. Then, I saw _you_ waiting for him in one of the tapes. You couldn't wait until after you'd gotten into his office to talk and I figured that you were a part of the situation."

"You think that because he wanted to help me that he's like this now? You think that's the reason."

"No, I know it is." Xu said. "And now, we just might have an epidemic on our hands. We have to go through all the drills of contagion infection, which means that as of now the Garden is on complete lockdown. No one is to enter or exit the premises, which includes commuting students, until we can isolate the spread."

Irvine swallowed hard. He really hadn't thought things through. "What about Squall and Selphie?"

"They will be looked after in the infirmary, with limited visitation of course." Xu sighed, sitting back down in her seat. "We were trying to keep things quiet, but it looks like we're going to have to go public with what we know. This isn't going to sit very well with the higher ups, or the rest of the Garden for that matter, but it has to be done."

"What do you want me to do?" Irvine asked. Xu fixed him with a hard look.

"Stay out of the way." She stated plainly. "Keep your noise out of it. Stay uninvolved and let those of us who are authorized to do so deal with this. If I find out that you have been working on this in any way, shape or form, once this is all over I'll see to it that your requested transfer to this Garden is denied, and inform the Garden Master Martine of the exact situation behind it. You'll be lucky if they'll let you stay in Galbadia Garden after that."

She pulled out one of the forms from the now large pile surrounding her, and the mountain of papers and file folders fell off the desk and onto the floor around her. Xu made a frustrated grunt in the back of her throat before throwing a livid glare at Irvine, as though all of this were his fault. "Get out of here already; you're dismissed."

A clicking noise was heard behind him and Irvine double-timed it out of there before he could make the situation even worse.

…

No one was happy about the news once it had been announced over the Public Address System; many of the commuters were furious that they were forced to stay over the weekend and the students who had decided to go into town had to rethink their plans. Irvine was glad to know that Xu had not named any names involving the circumstances, but he figured that if he put one toe out of line she wasn't above doing such a thing.

In fact, the only people who did know were the people he told immediately after his visit with Xu; Quistis, Zell and Rinoa. None of them were very thrilled to learn that he'd had a hand in it, but they weren't nearly as angry at him as he'd initially thought, especially since it was Zell's mother's birthday and the brawler had made plans to spend the day with her. (The only reason Zell was still in the Garden was because he'd lost track of time and had opted to stay in the Garden dorm for the night). Irvine guessed they were more concerned about Selphie and Squall than about their own plans and discomforts.

Everyone had met up in Irvine's dorm, where he'd told them everything that he knew about the situation; not because he wanted to get involved, but simply because he thought they deserved to at least know. Rinoa had known something was up when Squall had gone back to his dorm later than usual, or so she told them when he explained things. While he'd thought the brawler would have tried to make him feel worse about it, Zell had simply kept his mouth shut (for once); Irvine guessed they all knew he felt bad enough already.

Still, it hadn't stopped Quistis from pointing out how he should have just left it up to the higher ups; it wasn't their business to snoop around about it when it was already being handled, regardless of who was involved. Nevertheless, they were all more sympathetic than he had expected them to be.

Throughout the day, the medical staff visited each dorm room, taking blood and testing them on anything that could possibly be connected with the recent cases. Once that had been taken care of, Quistis had left to grade some more tests, and Zell had gone to call his mother to wish her a happy birthday. Irvine was grateful when Rinoa volunteered to head to the infirmary with him. Fortunately, Xu hadn't seen it fit to revoke his visitation rights and for this Irvine was grateful.

They walked in silence most of the trek from the dorms to the infirmary, but it was when they passed the cafeteria that Rinoa broke the silence. "I had a bad feeling last night."

Irvine didn't respond, expecting the raven haired Sorceress to elaborate. She took the hint. "On my way back from taking Angelo for a walk, I checked his dorm room, to see if he was there. He hadn't come back yet, so I assumed he was in the Training Centre. Still, even when I went to bed, I couldn't shake the feeling that something bad was going to happen. I never once thought that something could've happened to him, though."

"If you thought something was going to happen, why didn't you check it out?"

"Because I thought it was my imagination." Rinoa explained with a shrug. "At night I get a bit jumpy, especially if I'm by myself. I thought I was just jumping at shadows."

Irvine nodded to himself. He guessed Rinoa was feeling just as guilty as he was, but he tried not to dwell on it. "It's not your fault," he finally said.

"It's not yours either." Rinoa said. "From what Xu told you, Squall was already looking into it on his own anyway. He even said so himself. I don't think it would've made much difference if you hadn't met with him when you did."

"At any right," Irvine said uncomfortably. "Quistis has the right idea; let Xu and the Headmaster figure it out. Maybe they'll bring in Garden's council if they can't find anything. There isn't much we can do except hope they wake up."

Rinoa nodded, just as equally uncomfortable. They arrived at the infirmary moments later, the automated doors sliding open and shut. Dr. Kadowaki, who was sitting at her desk working on some paperwork, looked up and nodded in greeting before resuming her work; for obvious reasons she had her hands full.

As though the thought had already programmed itself into his head, Irvine headed towards the back of the room where Selphie lay behind a curtain that was meant for privacy than for any form of security measure. She was still motionless, save for the steady rise and fall of her chest. He sat down at the chair positioned next to her bed and was surprised when Rinoa pulled up a chair beside him (he thought she'd have gone straight for Squall). When she noticed his curious gaze, Rinoa shrugged. "I feel bad that I haven't been visiting as much as I should have; I'm not even a student here, and I've got all the time in the world. I guess I've been pretty selfish, huh?"

Irvine didn't answer, but the thought had crossed his mind on more than one occasion. Still, now was not the time to start an argument; at least now she was trying making up for it. Still, he couldn't help but feel bitter; while Selphie had been in the infirmary for a week now, no one had seemed to care; now all of a sudden, the Commander of Garden joins her in the exact same condition and the world comes to an end. As much as he knew it wasn't his fault, it didn't stop him from being embittered at the knowledge that, somehow, Squall seemed more important to Garden then Selphie did, all because of rank.

Finally, he rose to his feet and move to the next bed beside the curtain, where Squall now resided. Like Selphie's winter coat, Squall's beater jacket had been removed and was hanging on a coat rack at the front of the room. His boots had also been removed and, like Selphie, he was barefoot underneath the blanket that was covering him. Even though he knew that the outcome would have been the same regardless, he still felt badly; that perhaps he should have stayed with him in the library rather than run off to the infirmary. Maybe then he could have at least seen what had happened to him, or even have been there to stop it. Rinoa seemed to realize he was thinking this, because she placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder and said, "This isn't your fault."

He nodded slowly, and after a few more minutes, Rinoa stood up and moved over towards the doctor, Irvine doing the same, though he had no idea what Rinoa wanted with Kadowaki. That is, until she spoke up. "Um, I was wondering; is it okay if I take Squall's jacket with me?"

Irvine caught onto her line of thinking; the jacket was a part of Squall. He wore it all the time, especially during the war, and it'd been through a lot. It was something of his that she could hold onto, at least until he got better.

"I don't mind," Dr. Kadowaki answered. "They've already been cleaned, so you shouldn't get sick if you take it."

Rinoa nodded and immediately removed the beater jacket from the coat rack and put it on. The shoulders were far too big for her, and the sleeves hung passed her hands, but the bottom seemed to fall against her waist. Dr. Kadowaki smiled at Irvine; the first smile he'd received since Squall had collapsed. "You can take Selphie's too, if you'd like."

"Oh, ah, no thanks." Irvine said sheepishly. "Doubt it'd fit me at all."

Dr. Kadowaki's smile grew bigger as she removed the yellow jacket from the rack and handed it to the sharpshooter. "It's the sentiment that's important right? Just take it."

Irvine tried to refuse, but eventually he did take the jacket, tucking it under his arm. "Thanks," he said, honestly at a loss for words.

The doctor smiled good naturedly at the both of them as they left in slightly higher spirits than they had arrived in. Rinoa wrapped her arms around herself, so that both hands were resting on her shoulders; Irvine had seen her do this plenty of times during the war and figured it was a nervous habit, just like Zell's shadow boxing. Suddenly, she stopped and unwrapped her arms from her front before checking something inside the beater. "What's up?" Irvine asked.

"Something just poked me," Rinoa said, digging into an inside pocket before withdrawing a small piece of paper.

Irvine gave her a critical look. "You could _feel_ that?"

"I have very delicate skin," Rinoa protested defensively, as she searched the pocket for anything else. Aside from a pen, she came up empty. "Why would Squall have a piece of paper in his jacket?"

Irvine's eyes lit up and he snatched it out of her hand. "Maybe 'cuz he found something."

"What happened to staying out of it?" Rinoa asked, refolding her arms across her chest.

"He left a note, so it must be important," Irvine waved off, knowing exactly what she was implying. He unfolded the piece of paper and found that Squall had indeed written something on it; it was barely discernable through his handwriting and the colour matched that of the pen Rinoa had found:

_Not Selphie_

"What's it say?" Rinoa asked. Irvine simply handed her the paper and after she was finished looking it over, she looked as clueless as he felt. "What's this supposed to mean?"

"Dunno," Irvine said. "Some kind of clue I guess."

"What should we do about it?" Rinoa asked. "Talk to Xu? Maybe even Cid?"

"I'm supposed to be stayin' outta it, remember? You remember what Xu told me. If I get involved, I'm outta here faster than you can say 'Transfer Denied'."

"Then what are we going to do?"

Irvine thought about it for a moment before frowning slightly. "There's still someone else who might be able to figure this out."


	2. Detective Work

"So let me get this straight," Quistis said as she looked from Irvine to Rinoa. They'd headed straight to the dorms and knocked on her door so loudly that they might have woken everyone else around them had anyone actually been asleep. They might have even called security had Quistis not finally opened the door. She was dressed in a nightshirt that reached her knees, and her hair was actually out of the neat bun it normally was styled in; only it was braided. "You break curfew, which I might remind you both started," she checked her watch, "ten minutes ago, disturb the other people in the vicinity of my room just to get me to analyze a piece of paper?"

The instructor waved said paper in the air for emphasis. "Where did you find this anyway?"

"Squall's jacket." Rinoa answered, gesturing to the beater she was still wearing.

Quistis groaned, slapping herself in the forehead and running the hand down her face. "Don't tell me that this is for the investigation."

When neither of them answered, Quistis huffed. "You know what Xu told you, and you know she'll follow through with her threat."

"Right now, I don't care." Irvine said. "Squall mighta left us a message; some kinda clue, and if we ignore it then we're hinderin' the investigation."

"Then give it to Xu already."

"Xu'll assume that he went digging on purpose." Rinoa pointed out. "And she won't believe him if he tells her where he actually got it."

"You were the one who found it," Quistis pointed out. "You can back him up."

"Right now, I've got as much a reason to look into this as Irvine does." Rinoa shot back.

Quistis looked from one to the other again and sighed out of frustration. "Well, I don't know why you came to me with this. I don't know what he means by 'Not Selphie'."

"Well, maybe it's meant to be literal." Rinoa offered. "Like, it's a body double; not really Selphie. Not Selphie."

"And you needed me to help you figure that out?" Quistis asked, her eyebrow raised.

Irvine sighed. This wasn't going the exact way he'd planed it. "Look, we need all the help we can get. Obviously the higher ups are overlooking something; it's obvious. Squall went out of his way to look into it, even when Xu and the Headmaster were telling him not to."

"No offence, but look where it got him." Quistis argued back.

"But we also got a clue," Irvine said, taking the paper back from Quistis. "Dr. Kadowaki's already gone to bed for the night; let's say the four of us meet up tomorrow; that includes Zell, and we can brainstorm about it while Dr. Kadowaki's getting the test done. It'll take at least a day for the results to come out, right?"

"At least humour us." Rinoa said. "And if the DNA test doesn't pan out and we can't come up with anything legit, we'll talk to Xu about it."

"I can live with that." Irvine conceded. He didn't like his chances should that happen though.

"You promise," Quistis asked. Irvine and Rinoa both nodded in response. "Okay, I guess a little brainstorming wouldn't hurt. But I mean it; if nothing comes from this meeting and you're wrong about the DNA thing, you drop it and let Xu handle it."

…

They met up bright and early the following morning, meeting up in the cafeteria. Rinoa, Irvine, Quistis and Zell sat together at the far end of the cafeteria, where they would attract the least amount of attention. Zell was still half asleep (they'd all had to go to his dorm to wake the brawler up), and they'd had to drag him to the cafeteria in order to get some food into him. A few minutes later, he was wide awake and wondering why he'd been kidnapped. While Irvine and Rinoa explained to Zell about the note Squall had put in his jacket, Quistis went to request the DNA tests, with strict instructions to keep Xu and Cid out of the loop. She came back with the mission having been accomplished, though Dr. Kadowaki wanted a full explanation about it once the results came in.

They spent the next couple of days in the cafeteria, coming up with theory after theory but nothing concrete. In Irvine's opinion, Zell hadn't been very helpful; his ideas were mostly conspiracy theories cooked together from watching too many movies. Still, they weren't ignoring everything, but so far nothing seemed to fit together. By the time the third day rolled out, he was convinced they'd just been wasting their time; none of the ideas had managed to explain away everything and they were back to square one.

Just when they thought that things couldn't get any worse, the results of the test finally came back, but there was nothing inconclusive about it; the person who had been brought back to Garden over a week ago was Selphie Tilmitt.

When it was nearing dinner time, everyone decided they needed a break (and no one really wanted to stick around while the cafeteria filled up with hungry SeeDs and cadets). Opting to take the time to grade some papers, Quistis retreated to her classroom, and Zell opted to go to the Training Centre in order to let off some steam – the fact that they still hadn't thought of anything had left him frustrated and edgy. Rinoa had to feed and walk Angelo and since Irvine didn't have much else to do, he decided to join her.

"This sucks," Rinoa finally said as she led Angelo out into the quad. Since they couldn't leave the grounds because of the quarantine, Angelo was forced to do her business there, and Rinoa was forced to carry plastic bags with her when she let her dog out for a walk. Even still, Irvine didn't think she was talking about letting the dog out. "How can we _not _come up with anything?"

"Squall wasn't exactly clear in his message," Irvine stated.

"Maybe he wasn't thinking in the literal sense, after all." Rinoa guessed. "What if he wanted to elaborate, but he didn't have enough time?"

"Rinoa, Squall is the most straight forward person we know,"Irvine argued. "If he knows something, he doesn't beat around the bush; he just says it. It wouldn't make any sense at all for him to be intentionally cryptic."

"So what do you think?"

"I think we should retrace Squall's steps. Last I remember, he was researching in the library. Maybe we can convince Zell and Quistis to help us out. She did say we could brainstorm a little, and we haven't really run outta ideas yet."

"Do you think they'll go for it?" Rinoa asked tentatively.

"Zell maybe, but Quistis'll need a bit of work to convince her. But we convinced her to help us out in the first place, so I don't see a problem in tryin'."

The sun had long since set; the sky darkening into a navy blue above. It would've been difficult to see anything had the quad not been equipped with lights that activated once the sun had gone down.

"What if we can't figure this thing out?" Rinoa suddenly asked. "What if Garden can't even figure it out? What'll we do then?"

Irvine didn't answer; he didn't want to think about it. If they couldn't figure it out; if Xu or Cid couldn't wrap their heads around it, then would that mean neither SeeD would ever wake up? Would they be stuck like this for the rest of their lives, until someone finally stumbled across something? Dr. Kadowaki was supplementing the both of them with IV drips to keep their bodies working, but even that wasn't exactly long term.

"We should probably go back," Rinoa said. "Try our luck."

Irvine nodded in agreement and after coaxing Angelo out of the plants that had been planted after the war, they went back into the Garden.

…

Another day passed; they hadn't been able to do much research in the library, and Irvine couldn't possibly remember what books Squall had been skimming through. Quistis hadn't been able to join them; the faculty had a meeting scheduled and would take up most of the day. The instructor had promised to try meeting with them later, but she was behind in her own duties and had to catch up. Irvine wasn't holding his breath. So it was just Rinoa, Irvine and Zell sitting at a round table that was covered in books on comas and other subjects around the subject. Since there was no food or drink allowed in the library, they had to make scheduled trips to the cafeteria in shifts so that the research was being continued. Zell's girlfriend, Justine, had agreed to keep things quiet on the material they were studying and should even that fail, they could simply say they were just looking up information simply because they were curious.

They were there the entire day and night, aside from getting food for themselves. But they were still no closer than they were upon first discovering the clue, and they went to bed defeated. But Irvine was awoken early in the morning by someone knocking furiously on his dorm door. Sleepily and clad only in a pair of boxers, he opened the door to see Zell on the other side, wearing sweat pants and a muscle shirt. Irvine would've made a wise crack about it, but chose not to when he noticed how pale the brawler was. "It happened again." Zell explained quickly.

"Who?" Irvine asked. He didn't need to ask Zell what he was talking about.

"Quistis," Zell answered.

A moment later, Irvine shut the door in the brawler's face, got dressed and a few minutes later they were at the infirmary. Rinoa was already there when they arrived, looking almost panicked. According to Zell, security had been upped since Squall's collapse, and very early in the morning, they'd found Quistis on the second floor near her classroom in the same condition. The only reason he found out was he'd decided to visit the infirmary before his early morning exercises in the Training Centre (the quarantine was still under affect – normally he jogged around the exterior of the Garden before doing the same inside). He'd gone to Rinoa's room and then to Irvine's immediately after. Unfortunately, the doctor wasn't letting anyone in to see anyone at that point in time.

Xu was apparently at a loss of how this could've happened; she'd immediately sought out Irvine, assured that he'd been snooping again and had convinced Quistis to join in, but hadn't been able to pin it on him, what with everyone's alibi. Secretly though, Irvine wondered if this could've been the case; it had happened after he'd went to both of them for help. He couldn't help but also wonder whether Zell or Rinoa would be next. However, this thought was put on the back burner when Zell brought up an entirely different theory later on in the day when they met up at the library.

"What if this is some kind of thing that's only goin' after us?" Zell said suddenly, taking his usual seat – right next to the window at the far corner of the library – and leaning forward, his voice lowered to a whisper. Irvine and Zell had decided to meet Rinoa there; she was going to give it another shot at the infirmary. "Y'know, the ones who killed Ultimecia? Maybe this is the Sorceress' Revenge."

"Doesn't make sense." Irvine immediately dismissed with the shake of his head. "If it was like that, it woulda happened _right_ after the war ended. Why wait 7 months?"

"Ultimecia wasn't stupid." Zell argued. "She wouldn't attack right away."

"She's got an ego the size of Esthar," Irvine said. "She'd've wanted us ta know."

"Just hear me out," Zell said. Irvine fell silent; deciding to oblige the brawler for once. "First Selphie collapses in Timber, for no good reason right? Then a week later, Squall's next. Then, another four days and Quistis gets hit? Normally when the cops or other officials catch wind of a number of murders, the first thing they look at is what the victims all had in common. Aside from Ulti, what's Selphie, Squall and Quistis got in common?"

"They're all SeeD," Irvine answered. "They all live in Garden."

"Okay, aside from that," Zell waved off. "Specifically them; those things everyone here has in common. Squall and Selphie both have dark hair; both Quistis and Squall have light eyes. Selphie and Squall graduated at the same time, Selphie and Quistis are both girls. Aside from all that, they have virtually nothing in common."

"You're forgetting one thing," Irvine said. "Squall and Selphie were both a par t of the Garden Committee."

Zell stared at Irvine boggle-eyed. "I thought he said no."

"Not according to Selphie," Irvine said. "But that's beside the point."

"Yeah," Zell said, though the sharpshooter could tell that he was still floored. "But on the whole, the only thing they have in common on the whole is that they're SeeD, they live in the Garden, and they went to the future to kill the Sorceress. They might've contracted something while we travelled through Time Compression; like a virus or something like that."

"I still say that's jumpin' the gun a bit," Irvine said. "It should've happened sooner than this."

"Then what do you think happened?" Zell snapped. Irvine could see that he genuinely believed that he'd come up with the answer. "What else do we have here? I think this is the one thing that's most concrete."

Just before Irvine could argue, they heard a noise behind them and Rinoa sat down in-between them; she'd apparently just come back from the infirmary. All thoughts of Zell's theory left his mind as he asked her, "Anything?"

"I finally got into the infirmary." Rinoa said. "Xu and some other SeeDs were working on the investigation and were just finishing when I got in."

"Hear anything interesting?" Zell asked.

Surprisingly enough, Rinoa nodded. "Apparently when they brought Quistis to the infirmary, they found something that they didn't find on the others."

"Don't just leave us hangin', girl. What was it?" Irvine asked.

"There were traces of skin particles underneath Quistis' finger nails."

Rinoa didn't have to say anything else; Zell and Irvine both exchanged glances. It meant Quistis was physically attacked by someone and that she managed to fight off her attacker before she collapsed. It was definitely something more than what they had before. "Do you know who it was?"

Rinoa shook her head. "Xu told Dr. Kadowaki to match the skin cells with anything in their database. If they can't do that, then they're going to try the database in Balamb and anywhere else until they can get a match. Xu doesn't think it'll come to that though; whoever attacked her is still in the Garden."

The Sorceress grinned slightly as she continued. "Though I don't think Xu realized I was listening in. But after she left, I asked the doctor if she could let me know the results, as a concerned friend and all."

"And?" Both Zell and Irvine echoed.

"She's a little suspicious, but I managed to convince her to tell me." Rinoa's grin turned triumphant before she leaned back in her chair. "So what were you guys arguing about when I got here?"

"Nothin'," Irvine tried to cover, but Zell punched him in the arm. Damn limb almost went numb, but the brawler didn't seem to notice as he told her his theory. After a moment, Rinoa looked up thoughtfully.

"Zell, I'm sorry but I have to agree with Irvine; if it really was a virus, then it should've happened by now. Not to mention someone attacked Quistis, and we can't rule that out entirely."

Zell shot Irvine a glare, but Irvine was feeling pretty good about himself until Rinoa continued. "But I do have to agree with Zell on this one; it's too big of a coincidence. They're interests were too different, and the only thing they really do have in common is their occupation and the fact that they stopped the Sorceress War. Along with us, of course."

"So you're sayin' one of us is next," Irvine said. Rinoa hesitated before nodding slowly. She apparently hadn't thought of that.

"What do we do then?" Zell asked. He seemed to be in slightly better spirits, knowing that he could at least be half right. "Tell Xu? The Headmaster?"

"We're gonna have to," Rinoa shrugged. "We can't risk this happening to anymore people; a lot of people are on edge as it is. It'd cause a panic if anyone else just collapsed out of the blue."

"There's something buggin' me though," Irvine said, and both Rinoa and Zell waited until he continued. "Quistis was the only one with any signs of an attack. If she was attacked, then I think we can assume that it happened before. Now, Selphie I can understand having the drop on her; she may be fast, but she's still small; most people'd be able to take advantage of that. But Squall's bigger than both of 'em; why wouldn't he have fought his attacker? He'd have had the best chance of defending himself."

"Quistis' been a SeeD longer than both Selphie and Squall," Zell guessed. "She's better trained than both of them; maybe Squall didn't see the attack coming."

"No, that doesn't make any sense," Rinoa said. "Squall was already looking into Selphie's condition; he wouldn't have ruled anything out. If he suspected that someone else was responsible, he would've kept his guard up. And Squall's naturally paranoid; I've never been able to sneak up on him for as long as I've known him."

"But you're also not trained like we are." Zell said. "No offence Rinoa, but civilians are pretty loud to us when they try to sneak around and you're no exception."

Rinoa huffed in annoyance, and Irvine rolled his eyes. "That's not the only factor to consider though. Quistis is pretty light on her feet; a lightweight compared to Squall, who pretty much works out every mornin', am I right?"

He looked pointedly at Zell; he would know since he trained roughly around the same time. Zell nodded in response, not sure where this was going. "When I said Selphie was small, I was talking about weight and build. Without junctions, she's like a feather; you can easily blow her over. Quistis is slightly bigger and weighs more, but it wouldn't be too difficult to take her down, and since Quistis is an instructor, she isn't really prone to using junctions during classes or even when she's off the clock."

Zell's eyes lit up and Irvine grinned despite himself. He was finally getting somewhere. "But since Squall's mostly muscle, he'd weigh more than the both of them and it'd be much more difficult to take him down. Plus he's almost always using junctions."

"Exactly," Irvine nodded. "So why did Quistis fight and Squall didn't?"

"In either case, we might be able to get something out of the DNA results," Rinoa said. "We might be able to get a better understanding of how they did it when we figure out who the attacker was. But in the meantime, what can we do?"

"Obviously more research." Irvine said. "I can do that; been doin' a lot o' it recently."

"I was thinking of calling Edea," Zell said. "She might know a thing or two about this. I've got a couple of things I need to do today, but I don't see why I couldn't do that."

"Sounds like a plan." Irvine commented.

"And I can stake out the infirmary." Rinoa said, surprising the other two. "Try to get that update on the test."

"Okay. We'll meet back at the dorms in a couple o' hours." Irvine suggested. "Sound good to ya'll?"

Both Rinoa and Zell nodded and a few minutes later, they'd left, leaving Irvine to his work.

…

Irvine kept a strict eye on the clock as he continued his research, but when the two hours had expired, he hustled it to the dormitory, where Rinoa stood waiting for him. Before he could say two words to her, though, Rinoa spoke up first. "The results should be in in a few minutes. No change in any of their condition though and Dr. Kadowaki is getting really curious about why we want to know."

"We'll tell her when we've got something concrete," Irvine said before looking around. "Where's Zell?"

Rinoa shrugged. "I don't know; maybe in his room? He did say he had a couple of things to do."

Irvine sighed in exasperation. He hoped the brawler hadn't gotten side tracked. "Let's check it out then."

Both set off into the dorms down towards Zell's room. The hallway was filled with one or two students meeting up with one another, and he could hear them loudly complain about their forced confinement. Irvine couldn't blame them; it seemed like cabin fever was finally setting in and it'd only be a matter of time before fights began to break out.

They reached Zell's dorm and the sharpshooter went to rap on the door, but he was left with his balled fist hanging in the air as the door automatically slid open. Irvine and Rinoa exchanged puzzled expressions before Irvine's eyes narrowed and he pulled out the Exeter; Zell always locked his door, even if he was in his room – the boy had a thing about privacy.

Taking in the room, it looked like it normally did from the couple of times he'd been allowed to enter; laundry basket was full and there were a few articles of clothing lyin' around; almost like a tornado had hit it. It was much different from his room in Balamb, which made him believe his mother cleaned up after him. Trying not to think about that, he made a visual sweep of the room until he noticed an arm lying on the floor on the other side of the bed.

He gestured for Rinoa to come in, and the Sorceress did just that, but when they both circled around the bed, they found the brawler sprawled out on the floor next to his night stand. For some reason, Zell's bed was positioned in the center of the room (Zell must've moved it at some point, but they were supposed to be positioned onto the side next to the wall). The phone was off the hook, and when Irvine picked it up and placed it to his ear, all he heard was the dial tone.

_He musta been about ta make a call_, he thought to himself before letting the handle fall against the table.

Rinoa checked his vitals and nodded at Irvine; at least he was still alive. "Looks like Zell's theory was half right, after all," She said grimly

"Yeah, but we're still no closer to finding out what," Irvine pointed out frowning. "Why don't you head on over to the infirmary and check out those tests. I'll call Xu; say I found him here and help her bring him there. I'll meet up with ya in a few minutes."

Rinoa nodded and left the room, Irvine picking up the phone and punching in the code that would patch him into Xu's office.

…

It took him two minutes to explain the situation to her, and another five for her to meet him in the room, but as soon as she'd arrived, Xu had wanted to know what he was up to. Irvine had simply said he'd wanted to check up on Zell and had found him this way (a half truth, but she didn't need to know that). Xu had grudgingly let it slide and had helped him bring the unconscious brawler to the infirmary, enlisting help from some of the people standing idly nearby.

It didn't take them long to reach the infirmary, and when they arrived, Rinoa was seated near the door, her face unnaturally pale. She rose to her feet as soon as she saw them, but Irvine signalled her to wait for a moment while they put Zell to bed along with the others. Right afterwards, Irvine and Rinoa were ushered out of the room by Xu and Dr. Kadowaki while they talked about something they obviously weren't willing to discuss with either of them.

"How'd Xu take it?" Rinoa asked in an attempt at small talk.

"Not well. Immediately asked what I was doin' in Zell's room," Irvine said. "Managed to bluff her though, but I don't know how long it'll stick."

Rinoa nodded, definitely uncomfortable about something. They headed back towards the library, but eventually the silence got on Irvine's nerves. "Didja find anything in the infirmary?"

Rinoa winced; Irvine guessed that she had. Still, he was caught off guard by the look on her face. "I'll take that as a yes."

The Sorceress nodded before speaking, though it was in a whisper as they continued walking. "The results came in just as I arrived. But as the doctor was looking them over, I noticed something new; something we haven't seen before."

"Okay…" Irvine said, not at all clear on what she was talking about.

"First the DNA results…" Rinoa said before taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly. The girl looked like she was gonna faint. "They got a match."

"Really?" Irvine said. "Who was it?"

Rinoa looked down and mumbled something that Irvine couldn't hear. He asked her to repeat it and she looked up at him, taking another deep breath. "The DNA was Squall's."

Irvine wasn't sure he'd heard her at first, but as he ran the sentence through his mind, he stared at her incredulously. "You sure?"

Rinoa nodded. "Dr. Kadowaki checked out the results; she says it doesn't make any sense."

"Well I'm inclined to agree," Irvine said. "Squall's been unconscious for near a week. He _couldn't_ have done it."

"Dr. Kadowaki says the test was done accurately. She wants to do another one, but she's not convinced the results'll be different. I'm not convinced either; in fact, I think it'll still say the exact same thing."

"How can you be so sure?" Irvine asked.

Rinoa sighed again. The news was definitely upsetting her. "The thing I saw that we haven't seen before. I came in, pretending to visit as usual, but I saw that there was a bandage on one of Squall's arms. I asked Kadowaki about it, and she said that she'd only noticed it this morning. She doesn't know how it got there, but she said they were scratches; like someone ran their fingernails across his arm."

"And the DNA was found under Quistis' fingernails…" Irvine said as he trailed off. He was beginning to see how Rinoa was so convinced that the results were right. "But that'd mean that Squall's somehow involved, but he's in the same condition as the others."

"I don't understand it either, but DNA doesn't lie." Rinoa frowned thoughtfully. "And the scratches are definitely new, which could mean he really did attack her, but how'd he get past Dr. Kadowaki and security for that matter to get to her?"

Irvine's mind was running nearly a mile a minute; how could this have happened when Squall was attacked as well? The only thought that came across his mind was that the Commander was faking, but that didn't make sense either; Dr. Kadowaki would've been able to pick it up. She was trained to see through all that, what with Garden being military and all. "Whatever's going on, we're definitely the targets. But I can tell when people are lying, Rin. Squall's pretty good at doin' just that, but even he has his tells and when I talked to him before he got attacked, he was genuinely willin' ta help. Maybe he only started attacking after he was attacked."

Rinoa scrunched her nose up at the idea. "That makes even less sense."

"Yeah, I know," Irvine said. "Then again, nothing we've actually come up with makes much sense. Not even that 'Not Selphie' clue, if we can even believe that anymore."

"Well it's really all we have to work with." Rinoa said. "But we still haven't figured out what it means."

Irvine was about to say something, but the sound of footsteps made him stop and as he looked behind him, he saw someone running towards them. He recognized him as one of the SeeDs who'd brought Selphie into the Garden that day nearly two weeks ago. Irvine stepped aside to let him pass, but surprisingly enough he stopped right in front of the both of them. Panting as he tried to catch his breath, Rinoa and Irvine exchanged puzzled expressions before the SeeD was finally able to talk. "Lieutenant Commander Xu wants to talk to you both in her office, ASAP."

"What's it about?" Irvine asked. He was getting that trepidation feeling he got whenever he got caught cheating on a girl.

"Dunno," the SeeD admitted. "But I don't envy you; she looked seriously pissed."

Rinoa and Irvine exchanged glances once more, and the thought that crossed Irvine's mind wasn't a good one; _I'm so fucked._

…

When they arrived at Xu's office, the Lieutenant Commander was sitting at her desk, filling out some paperwork that Irvine severely hoped had nothing to do with denying his transfer request. She looked up when both he and Rinoa entered the room, and the door slid shut behind them before she moved the paperwork to one side. Leaning back in her chair, she folded her arms across her chest and fixed them with a level stare. "Who wants to start talking first?"

No one spoke for a moment but Irvine decided to take the bullet; thinking about it he'd rather be stationed in Galbadia for the rest of his life than to follow the rules and watch this happening to the others. "This was my fault."

"No, it was mine." Rinoa jumped in, startling the sharpshooter. "Irvine was dead set against looking into this whole thing until I found something in Squall's jacket and convinced him to help me look into it."

"If I hadn't looked into it in the first place…"

"There's no way we could know for sure that without the initial interference…"

"Shut up," Xu snapped, and both Irvine and Rinoa snapped their mouths shut. "I'm not interested in whose fault this is, or which one of you wants to take the bullet for the other. Right now, I have four SeeDs lying comatose in the infirmary with no apparent explanation as to why. With that said, no matter what either of you has to say, you _both_ have been working behind my back for the last few days and it stops now. Am I understood?"

"I'll stay outta it. This time, you've got my word," Irvine said after a moment, hoping to smooth things over, even if he didn't mean the words. Unfortunately for him, Xu laughed; not a jovial laugh, but a bitter one.

"Kinneas, right now your word means shit to me. I warned you what would happen if you looked into this and you went behind my back anyway, this time involving two other SeeDs. Now Zell, I can understand, but how you managed to rope Quistis into this still boggles me and frankly, I don't want to know.

"And you," Xu said, directing her glare at Rinoa. "You're not even a member of Garden and you're here by privilege because both Squall and the Headmaster vouched for you. This is the thanks they get for letting you stay here?"

Rinoa looked down guiltily, playing with her nails nervously.

"But you both are very lucky."

Rinoa immediately looked up to regard Xu and Irvine did the same; if she was so pissed off with them why would she say something like that. "Now is not the time to deal with this, and I will personally see to it that it does get dealt with when it _is_ time. Dr. Kadowaki informed me of your requests to gather information without my knowing about it as well as the DNA test on Tilmitt. I don't know what was running through your heads when you did this, but you are going to tell me _everything_ that you know about this, so start talking."

Both Irvine and Rinoa were about to speak when Xu raised her hand and silenced them both. "One at a time."

Rinoa stepped forward before Irvine could say anything. "The DNA test was done because I found something in Squall's jacket. Dr. Kadowaki said she'd had it cleaned, but I think the inside of the jacket is water proof."

"Continue," Xu said. Apparently, she didn't care about that.

"Anyways, there's an inside pocket with a zipper inside, and there was this slip of paper in it. It was in Squall's handwriting and it said 'Not Selphie'. That's why we did the DNA test."

"Where is this piece of paper?" Xu asked.

Irvine stepped forward and produced the paper, placing it on her desk. The Lieutenant Commander inspected it for a moment before nodding. "What was the result of the test?"

"It proved that Selphie really was brought to the infirmary," Rinoa said. "We still haven't figured out what the message meant."

"And this secondary test proves that Squall was the one who attacked Quistis," Xu said. Apparently, Kadowaki had briefed her on it as well. "Which doesn't make much sense at all."

"Zell thought that we're being targeted." Irvine stated. "The ones who defeated the Sorceress, I mean. It makes sense, if you consider who's layin' in the infirmary."

Xu looked confused. "Why would anyone want to target you guys?"

"Don't know." Irvine shrugged. "Zell also thought it was the Sorceress' Revenge." Rinoa nodded in agreement.

"So in other words, you haven't found much else out from what I've found," Xu said. Irvine and Rinoa shook their heads in response. Xu sighed before cursing lightly. "Well, since you know as much as you do, I might as well inform you that the Commander is being investigated for his apparent role. I'm having a team search through the surveillance cameras in case we missed something. So far we haven't been able to find anything so I'm not holding my breath, but at least we're doing something."

Irvine suddenly got an idea. "How far back are you planning to look?"

Xu frowned. "Why?"

"Let Rinoa and me look through the tapes." Irvine suggested and Rinoa stared at him in confusion. "It's the least we can do for goin' behind your back. This time we'd have your permission."

Xu leaned forward, and he didn't like the look on her face. "Neither one of you are really in my good books right now, and I could have the both of you brought up on charges for your actions. So tell me, Kinneas, what makes you think I'd let a Galbadian Sharpshooter with no credentials and a civilian Sorceress look through Balamb Garden's security tapes rather than fully trained SeeDs with years of experience in this field of expertise?"

"If we're helping with the investigation, you'll keep a better eye on us; we won't be able to do much without your knowing about it," Irvine said before he grinned. "And you know we'll just find a way to do it anyway. We found the paper with the clue on it, right? It's the only lead we have and since the guy who wrote it is the one you're focussing the investigation on right now, seems only right we test the clue, right?"

…

Even Irvine hadn't expected that to work. In fact, he'd expected to have been thrown in the brig for even considering the notion that he could do something that Xu couldn't.

And yet here he was, sitting in Garden's security room with Rinoa, overseeing all of the security tapes for the past two weeks. He must've rolled some lucky dice, or done something real good in a past life to have that kinda luck, but he wasn't gonna jinx it by mulling it over. This was his chance to prove himself right.

Once the escorts had left the room (though they were standing guard in case Irvine or Rinoa tried anything funny), Irvine had looked for a specific set of tapes and filled Rinoa on what they were looking for; something happened between the time Selphie was brought to the Garden to when Squall collapsed. The sharpshooter wasn't a hundred percent positive, but he'd bet his hat that the clue had something to do with it. Both of them spent the next set of hours watching the surveillance tapes, taking down notes of anything of interest and reporting back to Xu every half hour. It was tedious work but Irvine hoped they found something that'd shed some light to the situation.

It was a couple days later when they finally found something of importance; Rinoa called him over to where she was sitting and told him she was watching the tape when Squall had told Irvine to visit the infirmary. Thinking back on it, he supposed he should have been suspicious, but he still found it difficult to believe Squall would've had anything to do with any of this. They got just to the point where Irvine left the library for the night when Rinoa yawned and stretched her arms over her head. Finally, after about another hour and a half, Squall left the library.

Switching that tape with the one overseeing the hallway, they watched that for a few minutes before they realized he had headed to the infirmary. Rinoa turned to look at Irvine who shrugged in response; he'd spent a few minutes with Selphie before heading to bed early that night; he hadn't actually seen Squall after the library. Switching tapes again, they found the one for the infirmary dated for that night and slapped it in, watching as Squall entered the infirmary. He spoke to Kadowaki for a moment, asking to look around before doing just that. Five minutes into the search, Kadowaki announced that she would be leaving for the night soon, and that she had to go into her office to pack up her things. After the doctor disappeared from the camera's viewpoint (both Irvine and Rinoa assumed that she'd entered her office), Squall continued his search and didn't find much of anything.

Just as Irvine was certain Squall's lead – whatever that had been – was a dead end, he saw Squall stand where he was and close his eyes for an instant before resuming his search. Irvine raised an eyebrow, but Rinoa sat up straighter, leaning forward into her seat and drawing the sharpshooter's attention. "What?"

"He cast a spell just now." Rinoa said. "You didn't catch it."

"Rin, you know I don't like to dabble in that kinda stuff," Irvine pointed out. He preferred to depend on the Exeter more than anything.

Rinoa shrugged sheepishly. "Right, sorry. I can't tell what spell he cast, but he definitely did."

"Maybe scan," Irvine suggested and Rinoa looked at him. "From what I've heard, with scan you can pretty much see and identify stuff almost like you were wearing night vision goggles. Maybe he thinks he'll be able to see something that the naked eye can't find alone."

"It's possible," Rinoa said, turning to watch the camera again. Sure enough, Squall was looking in the exact same places he had been moments ago. But a couple minutes later, Squall moved towards one of the beds, and jumped back in surprise, almost as if he'd seen a ghost, with his back hitting Kadowaki's desk. Dr. Kadowaki entered the scene again, but before she could say anything, Squall left, almost like he was in a hurry.

"What d'ya reckon he saw?" Irvine asked. Rinoa shrugged.

"Rewind the tape," She said. "I'll try to find out."

Irvine did as told and when he rewound far enough, Rinoa lowered her head and closed her eyes before opening them slowly. When she raised her head, her eyes looked out of focus; almost like she was blind, but he could tell she was staring right at the screen. It replayed the scene and finally as Squall left, Rinoa's eyes regained their focus. Pausing the tape, he regarded her curiously, but the Sorceress shook her head. "Just what I thought. The tape recorded what it sees, and the spell didn't work. Whatever Squall saw, we'll have to go downstairs and see for ourselves."

"You think Xu'd let us?" Irvine asked.

"You think I care right now?" Rinoa shot back. Irvine had to admit she did have a point.

The pair of them left the security room and managed to make up an excuse for the SeeDs posted at the door (bathroom break, they both had said). They made it to the elevator, pressed the button for the first floor and rode the elevator down, hoping they wouldn't run into anyone else.

"I wonder why Xu didn't tell us this," Rinoa suddenly asked. Irvine shrugged.

"Need-to-know bases. You know how she is."

"You would think Dr. Kadowaki would've said something."

"Maybe she was told not to." Irvine said. "If I was her, I'd be more scared of Xu than of us."

The elevator dinged, signalling that their floor had arrived and both of them charged out of the elevator, walking at a brisk pace towards the infirmary. The doors slid open when they got close enough and they entered, but what they saw was definitely not what they expected to see. The desk at the end of the room, normally immaculate and covered with need piles of files was a mess of loose paper and folders, and Dr. Kadowaki was slowly getting to their feet, gripping her head with her left hand. Both the sharpshooter and the Sorceress instantly forgot the reason they had come and ran to her side, helping the elder woman onto a nearby bed.

"What happened?" Irvine said when they were sure she was alright.

"I don't know," Dr. Kadowaki confessed. "I was in here, checking on my patients and organizing my files when I got hit off the back of my head. The next thing I know, I'm on the floor and you two showed up."

"Call security; get them down here," Irvine said.

"There's a directory taped to the wall beside the phone," Dr. Kadowaki said helpfully. Rinoa nodded and went into the adjacent office.

"You sure you didn't see who attacked you?" Irvine asked. He felt increasingly stupid; he'd just been up in the security room. Had they not been as focused on the tapes as they had been, they would've been able to see who attacked her.

Dr. Kadowaki shook her head in response before standing up suddenly. Irvine didn't know what had gotten her up in arms and any attempt at getting her to sit back down was futile.

_Whoever said 'doctors make the worst patients' had Dr. Kadowaki in mind, that's for damned sure._

Dr. Kadowaki moved over towards her desk and surveyed the room, frowning deeply when she finished. Just as Irvine was about to ask her what was wrong, she answered him unknowingly. "Where the hell are my patients?"

It took him a moment to realize it, but she was right; the four beds that had been housing the rest of the team were now empty.

…

An hour later, Xu emerged from the security office, frowning. Though this time, it wasn't directed towards Irvine or Rinoa. "Nothing."

Irvine raised an eyebrow. "Nothing?"

"Nothing. For some reason, the tape crapped out before Kadowaki was attacked," Xu explained. "I thought someone might have broken it, but it started working fine when Kadowaki came around. Either way, we didn't see who attacked her and there was no DNA left at the scene."

"How is the doctor?" Rinoa asked.

"A little bruised, but she'll be alright. The medical staff are looking after her right now."

"We're sorry." Irvine blurted out, startling the Lieutenant Commander. "We went to the infirmary to follow a hunch and we found her like that. If we'd been paying more attention to the actual monitors, we'd've seen who attacked her."

"Are you kidding me?" Xu asked and Irvine was taken aback. For once, the tone wasn't accusing or embittered. She almost sounded grateful. "Had you two not been down there when you were, who knows what the doctor would've done? If anything you probably prevented her from hurting herself worse than she is. What did you find anyway?"

"Squall saw something," Rinoa jumped in. "We don't know what, but apparently it shocked him. He left the infirmary almost immediately afterwards."

"Dr. Kadowaki did mention something like that, but she assumed he'd forgotten something in his office," Xu said. It made some sense why she hadn't told them, but regardless Irvine still felt out of the loop. That must have been how Xu felt when she found out what he'd been up to.

"Well," Xu continued. "I doubt you'll find what he saw here, but you're free to look anyway. Where was it he was standing?"

"Right in front of Kadowaki's desk," Rinoa said and both she and Irvine led Xu into the infirmary. Xu stood in front of the desk before shaking her head. "I don't see anything."

"Try casting scan." Irvine said. When Xu stared at him, Irvine shrugged. "Rinoa says Squall cast it on himself before he jumped."

Nodding, Xu closed her eyes and a moment later she opened them, her hazel eyes holding that same blind-like look that Rinoa's had earlier. After a moment of looking, Xu shook her head and closed her eyes, dispelling the effects. "I still don't see anything. Whatever it was, it's gone now."

Just before Irvine or Rinoa could say anything, however, one of the SeeD members approached Xu. "Ma'am. Dr. Kadowaki is ready to be questioned."

Xu nodded at the two (Irvine assumed it was a dismissal) before joining the SeeD in speaking with the doctor. Irvine and Rinoa left the infirmary, walking down the hallway back towards the dorms. "Let's go over what we know," Irvine said, Rinoa nodding. "We know that Selphie was brought in almost two weeks ago, unconscious and unresponsive, and that a week later, Squall was found in the same position."

"We also know that before he collapsed, he saw something and then practically ran out of the infirmary." Rinoa added. Irvine nodded in response.

"Then, four days after that, Quistis is attacked by Squall; don't know how or why; and nearly half a day later, Zell is found in his room in the same condition."

"And now, two days after that, all four of them disappeared. All the people who've collapsed so far have been a part of the Esthar team to take out Ultimecia."

"And the only thing left to figure it all out is this note Squall left us." Irvine summed up before suddenly stopping. Rinoa walked a few feet ahead before she seemed to realize this and stopped too.

"What's up?" Rinoa asked uncertainly.

"I think I've figured it out." Irvine said after a moment.

"Figured what out?" Rinoa asked before she seemed to realize it. "You mean this whole thing?"

Irvine nodded in response before Rinoa jumped in front of him. "Don't just stand there; tell me!"

"I need to get some confirmation first." Irvine said. "But I think I've got it wrapped up."


	3. Predator and Prey

Sneaking out of the Garden was no easy feat, especially because of the quarantine, but amazingly enough his good luck had yet to fail him and he was currently heading west of the Garden, hoping he was right about everything he'd thought of.

He recalled the argument he'd had with Rinoa about what they were going to do; he needed her to contact Edea (it was obvious that Zell had been about to make the call when he'd been attacked), and tell her about the situation in case Edea could still help them out while he followed his lead. He'd finally managed to convince her with simple logic; she was a Sorceress and if whatever this was took her out, then they were all screwed. If he figured this all out and he failed to stop it, Rinoa could at least do something.

First, he had to figure out if he was right about where the others were; not much time had passed since Dr. Kadowaki's attack, and since this thing was clearly after their team, Irvine doubted the perpetrators would've gone too far. Even if they had wanted to, there weren't many places they could hide out aside from the town and Irvine's gut was telling him they wouldn't head in that direction. But there was one place they could have gone.

Irvine recalled Zell and Quistis telling him about the Fire Cavern west of the Garden; how Ifrit had lived there for the longest time until Squall and Quistis had managed to beat him up before the field exam. It was hot as hell and fairly big, but from what Zell had told him, the path was pretty straight forward and it was difficult to get lost. He hoped the brawler was right about it, but he figured the real test would be his finding the way himself.

After all, it was the perfect hiding spot.

It had taken him just over an hour to get to the actual cavern. The entrance was huge, the top of the opening towering even higher than his own 6 feet, but he didn't let the sight deter him any. Levelling the Exeter, he stepped inside and found the path easily enough soon after that. He continued down the path, keeping an eye out for monsters that he knew would be swarming, but after a few minutes he realized that there was something not quite right about this place. For one thing, he was surrounded by lava, but he wasn't the least bit hot; not by a long shot. It was even stranger that he hadn't been attacked yet; Zell had told him that about sixty seconds into the cavern, he had been ambushed by Buels and Bombs.

And yet, the monsters had all decided to leave Irvine alone.

Somehow, Irvine guessed that his gut feeling had been accurate, and he continued deeper into the cavern. It was another thirty minutes before he finally reached what Zell had told him was the center of the cavern; it was a very narrow looking bridge and a very large looking pit formed of lava in the very centre. It looked really hot, but as Irvine placed his gloved hand atop the sides, it was cold to the touch. The sharpshooter frowned thoughtfully before looking over the edge and noticed a ladder leading down. Shrugging to himself, Irvine lifted one leg over the side before moving his other leg and soon enough he was headed down the object, not knowing where it was going to take him.

Finally after a few minutes of descending, he saw the bottom and, twisting himself around, he allowed himself to drop the rest of the way, landing in a crouch with his weapon raised. All he saw of the place he had dropped into was a rather large room, mostly dark of course, with solid walls of bedrock surrounding him. Irvine suddenly felt fairly claustrophobic, but pushed the feeling away preparing to look for the others.

But just as he started his search, he caught something in the centre of the room; it was a figure, sitting crossed-legged on the smooth floor beneath them, its head resting on both palms of the person's hands. Their elbows were propped up atop their knees, almost as if they had been patiently waiting for someone. The figure was small, eerily small, and as Irvine took a couple more steps into the room, he recognized the figure right away.

Her head perked up upon seeing him and she instantly sprung to her feet with an energy she shouldn't have had. She grinned at him, flashing white teeth before she finally spoke, breaking the silence.

"Irvy!" Selphie Tilmitt responded, jumping up energetically before her bare feet touched the ground. "It's so good to see you! I haven't seen you in a while, haven't I? You've gotta sit down; there's so much catching up to do!"

However, just as suddenly, her mannerism changed; gone was the cheerful yet innocent expression on her face and her eyes shifted as well her disposition. She placed her hands on her hips and leaned forward mockingly, still wearing the exact same yellow crop top and blue short-shorts she'd been wearing for the last few days. "I'm sorry," even her tone had changed. "Is that what you were expecting me to say?"

"Not really," Irvine said, and he could tell he'd caught her off guard.

"Not really…" she echoed thoughtfully. "Do tell."

"I've figured it out," Irvine stated simply. Selphie cocked her head to the side and Irvine elaborated. "And I wouldn't have done it had Squall not taken the time to write out that message. Didn't quite understand what he meant at first, but looking at the tapes, I figured it out. He was giving us the answer, and all we had to do was take it at face value."

"How d'ya know it wasn't a puzzle?" she asked.

"Squall doesn't beat around the bush; if he's got something to say then he says it." Irvine said. "So when he leaves a note behind sayin' 'Not Selphie', he means that you're not Selphie. At first we thought along those lines and we ordered a DNA test, but obviously it is Selphie's body. But Squall saw something when he cast scan and looked around the place; when he looked at you, he saw your true form. So he wasn't talkin' physical like; he was talkin' mentally. Whoever you are, you're not Selphie Tilmitt."

"Ding, ding!" Selphie shouted out cheerfully. "We have a winner! Took you a while to figure it out though. I guess my distraction really worked."

Irvine faltered slightly. "Distraction?"

"Yeah," Selphie nodded her head enthusiastically. "By now you probably figured out that I'm the one responsible for attacking Selphie and, um… what's his name? Right. That Squall guy too. But I figured that I'd drawn too much attention to myself; especially when he practically ran outta the room, so after I shut _him_ up, I decided to up the stakes of the game a little."

"Stakes?" Irvine echoed. "Game?"

"Yep! You see, I'm not Selphie, just like the note says, but he's no longer Squall. And she's no longer Quistis and he's no longer Zell either. I just had a friend of mine do the rest of the dirty work to keep you guys off my back. If only it'd worked for a little while longer, but I figured you two were getting wise to me, so we just picked up and left. I hope he didn't hurt that doctor too much; she's pretty nice. For a human anyway."

Irvine's eyebrows shot up underneath his hat. That comment caught him completely off guard; he'd expected Sorceresses or some other kind of person behind this. He guessed he was wrong and he was starting to think that he'd bitten off more than he could chew.

Selphie laughed; he had no idea why she was laughing, but the sound was unnatural coming from the petite girl. Cold, dark and shallow. "Confused you didn't I? No, I'm not human, and neither are the others. We come from a different world than this one. In fact, we saw you travelling between time and space a little while ago."

Irvine couldn't figure out what she was talking about, and she seemed to be able to pick up on that, because she elaborated. "What you guys called 'Time Compression'?"

_So Zell _was _right,_ he thought to himself. _It did involve the team, and that was the connection, only Ultimecia had nothing to do with it._

"Yeah, that two-bit Sorceress wouldn't know a good plan if it bit her on the—" Selphie started, but Irvine interrupted her.

"You can read minds?"

"I believe the term is Telepathy, but yeah, that's pretty accurate. I'm not the only one though; the others can too."

_Terrific…_ "So why'd you come here?" Irvine asked, in a desperate need of a change of topic. This was getting way too weird for his tastes.

"Honestly?" Selphie asked and Irvine nodded in response. "Because I was bored."

"You were bored?"

Selphie nodded. "There's not much to do in my world; at least nothing _fun_ anyway. We just get up, gamble, watch other worlds and worship our God, the Pale Night – she's far more powerful than any of us could hope to dream of, by the way, but I digress. I was bored; wanted a change of scenery and when I saw you guys passing through, I figured I'd have a pretty decent shot of that. I rounded up a small group of us, and we came up with a plan. Just when this _Time Compression _thing ended, I made my way to your world through the portal that was opened. It was as simple as that.

"Unfortunately, because we come from different worlds, we can't necessarily exist here. I started dissolving almost instantly, so I just jumped into the skin of some random guy that found me."

_A girl demon possessing a guy? _Irvine thought to himself as he tried to get a mental image. Selphie, however, laughed again.

"No silly; you've got it all wrong. Unlike the human species, we demons don't have distinguishing genders; just distinguishing features. I'm comfortable in any body, really, except this girl's chest is a pain in the back – didn't think girls'd get bumps on their chests this big, if you know what I'm sayin'."

Irvine's mind immediately shot off to the gutter, but he reeled it back as quickly as possible. The amused expression on Selphie's face suggested that the demon caught it though. "Anyways, I wandered around, hoping to find some kinda clue about you all, but all I managed to figure out is that six people beat up a Sorceress and are living in a garden. Then I realized they were talking about a building, not a patch of flowers – apparently there's a difference. But I had no way of getting there, so when I learned that the people who lived there were mercenaries, I got an idea and well, it got a little messy when I started killing people for no real reason other than to draw attention to myself. I got the attention of the authorities, but not of the people I wanted of course, so I managed to not get caught until finally SeeD was brought in. I thought it'd be too easy to get one of the people I needed to come, but behold my surprise when I saw little Selphie Tilmitt and her team of SeeDs comin' to get me.

"Of course I wasn't gonna make it easy for her; I did what any sensible murderer would do. I hightailed it outta there as fast as I could. I managed to lure her into an abandoned building and just when she thought she had me, I started fighting back. It took a while, but she beat me; I have to say I actually had to try to take her down, but she beat me. She killed the body I was possessing so obviously I had to jump before the death could affect me too, and wouldn't ya know it?" Selphie grinned wider. "Selphie's was the only body to choose from. She was caught off guard and so it made possessing her a lot easier. Just when I was about to get away though, her SeeD comrades caught up and I played possum. They reported to their Garden and brought me back with them.

"I couldn't have dreamed it up; you humans sure made it easy for me. But as I lay in the infirmary, trying to figure out who I should go after next – after all, my buddies were all waiting for me to harvest some bodies for them, the answer practically walked in the door."

Irvine didn't need to ask her who she was talking about; there was only one person who it could've been, given the order. "I was just waiting for my chance to attack, but somehow he was able to see what my real form was. He flipped out; and while I admit his expression was priceless, it was pretty inconvenient, seeing as how he ran outta there like there was a fire. So I conjured up a shadow, put the soul of one of my buddies in it and had the cameras all fogged up so that no one'd see the attack. Next thing I know, I have an instant roommate, and I wasn't all by myself anymore."

_And she'd be able to talk to him as often as she wanted because she's telepathic. _ Irvine guessed. Selphie read his thoughts again and nodded in response.

"I thought he'd had long enough to do something; my friend said he thought he'd seen him slip something inside his jacket, but he obviously hadn't had the time to check; especially since the doctor took the jacket away and the girl in blue left with it later on. So I figured if he'd left something to spoil our fun, I'd just have to discredit him."

"And that's why Squall's DNA was found under Quistis' finger tips." Irvine said. "Your friend used his body to attack her."

Selphie nodded. "And the doctor was none the wiser since I conjured up a shadow to take his form while he was gone. When he came back with scratches, he was kinda upset, but I told him not to worry; it'd be a form of _clue_; you humans sure take pride in figuring stuff like this out. So after that, we decided to step up the pace – gosh my friends are rather impatient – and we took down the blonde guy and two days later we booked it. And here we stand today."

"No kiddin'," Irvine commented. "So there's six of ya out there; personally I'm wondrin' what their take in waiting so long is. How did they take it when you announced you were goin' first?"

Selphie folded her arms across her chest. "I have the powers to make it possible; if anyone else'd gone before me, there's no telling what would'a happened to these bodies. And FYI; there are only five of us, not six."

Irvine frowned. There were six people to choose from; it didn't make any sense to just have five possessors there. That bad feeling of foreboding he always got during missions gone wrong came up and he was almost afraid to ask his question. "So who's getting left outta the loop?"

"I'd think it was obvious," Selphie responded. "As powerful as she may be, none of us are _really_ all that interested in possessing the Sorceress. It'd be too easy; just blow up stuff as a solution."

Irvine's stomach sunk; he'd practically fallen into a trap; there was only one demon left and after dismissing Rinoa, he was the only other person who had traveled through time. "Funny, the girl whose body that belongs to," he pointed towards Selphie, "would hafta disagree with ya."

Selphie shrugged. "Her prerogative I guess. I have to admit though; I am a touch disappointed with my 'Merry Band'. You see, ever since they arrived, the ingrates've done nothing but complain about useless facts about their new bodies. My feelings get hurt just thinking about it." She started moving along the room, the slap of bare feet hitting what sounded like concrete echoed softly off the walls as she spoke. "I mean, I'm not too thrilled about this body either, but I'm making due. It does have its advantages after all."

Just out of instinct to stall and not out of any genuine curiosity, Irvine said the first thing that came to mind. "Which body were you lookin' for then?"

Selphie grinned at him. "Yours, actually. I'm a conjuror and as much as I can tell you're not one of the types to use those… what are they called? Right. Guardian Forces, you're exactly my body type. And you fight from afar; something I prefer actually; close range gets too messy; I don't understand how anyone can get that up close and personal."

Irvine suddenly realized something that he hadn't thought much of originally; they had him in their sights. They coulda taken the shot a while ago, but instead here was this demon using Selphie's body as clothing, talkin' his ear off. He doubted it was anything he had personally done as a stalling measure; she just seemed like she wanted to talk. There really wasn't anything stopping them from taking possession of his body like they'd done to the others, but he was still in control. "So…" he said as another change of topic. "Why 'm I still in control? Woulda thought your friend'd be almost jumping inta my skin."

"And they would if I wasn't stopping him," Selphie grinned. "I was actually beginning to wonder when you were gonna ask me that."

"And you're stopping him because…?" he urged. Selphie grinned wider.

"Because you earned the answers," she said. "You've been working on this pretty much since the beginning, and since I couldn't actually get control of you when I wanted to, I figured we could play a little game. I give you clues and you try to solve the mystery."

"And now the game's over?" Irvine asked. Selphie shook her head.

"Nope; it's just beginning actually."

When he gave her a confused look, Selphie elaborated. "You did a really good job in getting the information you needed; even pissing off a couple of people. You really should've seen the look on that dark-haired woman's face when she learned what you'd been doing. I almost broke outta character; I wanted to laugh so hard. And since you did such a good job of entertaining me and my friends, I figured I'd give you a little reward."

"Nothin' as high as amnesty, huh?" Irvine asked. He had to try.

"Nah, that'd be too easy. Instead, we're gonna play another game. Nothing too complicated; actually you might have heard it. The younger humans play it all the time from what I've been hearing. It's called Hide and Seek."

Irvine was fairly familiar with the game; he remembered playing it when he was at the orphanage. He hadn't been particularly good at it though. "That's the reward?"

"It's a chance to escape." Selphie explained. "The rules are simple; you have to find all four of us at least once and keep yourself from getting caught during a certain amount of time. We'll say two hours, just to make things interesting. If you can manage that, you get to walk away without the added demon in your skin. Of course my friend won't be happy about it, but he actually wanted the Squall guy's body to begin with, so he won't be all _that_ disappointed. Or maybe he will…" she shrugged. "Whatever. Doesn't really matter. You've earned it."

"And if I lose?" Irvine asked, though it didn't really need to be spoken.

"If you lose, then you don't struggle or resist; you just take your lumps like a man." Selphie explained. "Now, there are two conditions of loss. Number 1, obviously if any one of us catches you before the time limit passes. Or number 2, if you manage to stay hidden during that time, but you haven't found any of us at all. Even if you found three but not four of us and you haven't been caught, you still lose."

Irvine got a sudden hint of inspiration and, even though he didn't think it'd work, he wanted to try. "Two conditions of loss with only one condition of win, and with those high stakes? Sorry, but my own freedom just won't cut it."

Selphie frowned. "Self preservation is the highest reward out there. I don't see how this isn't fair."

"Well, for starters, there's four on one. Then I gotta find all four of you _and_ keep from getting caught for two hours. I don't know about you but somethin' don't seem right about it. Too one sided if you catch my drift."

"So… what would you want to add to even things out?" Selphie asked curiously. Irvine was surprised she hadn't thought to read his mind.

"If I win this game of yours, the reward has to fit the challenge rating," Irvine explained. "So if I win, you let me _and_ the others free. They get control of their bodies back, and you never bother us again. I'd say in the light of things that'd be real fair."

"Those are pretty high stakes…" Selphie said.

"True," Irvine conceded. "But I've got a lot to lose if you guys win. Shouldn't you guys have a lot to lose should I win?"

"What makes you think that, for this sudden addition, I won't just have you get controlled by my friend to save myself the trouble?"

This time, Irvine grinned. "Well that wouldn't be very _fun_ now would it?"

Selphie appeared to mull it over and Irvine kept his fingers crossed, hoping that she'd buy into it. Finally, she nodded. "You drive a hard bargain, Irvine Kinneas; that's what I like about you. Okay, I'll agree to your terms. My friends won't be too happy about it, but all they've been doing is complaining, so I don't really care. I'll give you a five minute head start before the rest of us head on in. Use it wisely."

"Wait," Irvine said. "How do I know how long I've got? You could just keep the game goin' till you win."

"True," Selphie nodded thoughtfully before grinning. "Look at your watch."

Irvine stared at her critically. The sharpshooter had never worn a watch in his life; but he checked his wrist anyway. Surprisingly enough, he saw that he was wearing a SeeD issued digital watch, but instead of reading the current time, the numbers were blinking 2:00. He raised an eyebrow before turning to regard the demon.

"That way, we can't cheat." She said sweetly. She didn't seem to want to explain where the watch had come from. "You better hurry; we don't have all day."

Just as suddenly, the numbers stopped flashing and started counting down from two hours. Irvine quickly manoeuvred around Selphie and continued ahead wondering exactly what it was he got himself into this time.

When he was far enough away, he mentally cursed himself. He had no where to hide and no idea where the others were staked out. He really should've thought things through, but he'd been in the spirit of things; knowin' that there was a way out, he'd opted to take it and not question it. A moment later, however, he walked right into something solid and recoiled, landing on his rear end and rubbing at his face to alleviate the pain. When he looked up, though, he was surprised to see a large stone wall towering before him. His surroundings also appeared lighter than he originally remembered, and he noticed he was already somewhat in a corridor. Judging by how tall the walls were and the fact that they were made of solid stone, he guessed he was in some kind of labyrinth.

_Wonderful. I'm trapped in one of Zell's online games and fighting for control of my body. Just what I wanted to do on a Tuesday night._

Paying attention to his surroundings this time, he went along a pathway, trying to remember the path he was taking. However it was very difficult; the walls all looked the same and the twists and turns he took made him feel slightly disoriented. He guessed that he was lost already, but knew he had to spot the others at least once before attempting to hide anywhere.

The watch on his wrist – because it obviously wasn't his – beeped loudly; upon checking it he realized his five minute head start was up and that he'd have to get his head on straight if he wanted to come out smelling the best. He picked up the pace; not caring that the bottom of his boots clicked against the hard floor beneath him. The Exeter drawn and held at the ready, Irvine pressed his back against the wall counting backwards from three before finally jumping out; gun raised and scanned the area ahead, finding nothing out of the ordinary. Once he was convinced and absolutely positive that he was alone, he continued on.

It must have been ten or fifteen minutes later when he finally did find something; he had been about to jump out and search the area when a blast of magic almost hit him, forcing him to recoil and brace himself against the wall protecting him. Rubble and pebbles cascaded the ground from where the blast had hit the wall across from him, and swallowing the lump that had formed in his throat, the sharpshooter was increasingly glad that he had moved when he had.

"I know you're nearby," a plainly familiar voice sounded from just ahead. "Come on out already."

The voice was feminine and while it was familiar, Irvine had to remind himself that it wasn't who he thought it was. Taking in a deep breath and slowly letting it out, he went to step out of the shadows, but was forced to back away as another blast hit the wall across from him. Having kept his eyes open this time, he recognized it as a blast of fire.

"How the hell d'ya reckon I do that when ya keep blasting me with magic?" Irvine shouted out, making sure the Exeter was ready. He didn't exactly revel in fighting his friends, but if he had to, he didn't wanna be caught unawares.

A set of dark laughter followed his question before he received a response. "Alright. But make it quick. I get bored rather easily."

As he stepped out of his hiding spot, he knew instantly he'd been right; standing before him was a young woman – older than him but not by much. Her long blonde hair had been pulled out of the customary bun it was normally settled in and instead it had been left down, some of the strands falling into her face. She still wore the same outfit she'd been found in; white shirt with black vest overtop it and a dark red coloured skirt and was missing her silver rimmed glasses. She, like Selphie, was barefoot, but that was to be expected, since Dr. Kadowaki had taken off her boots.

Irvine was grateful that Quistis hadn't been found with her whip; who knew what the demon possessing her would do with it. Instead, however, magic seemed to charge into the blue mage's hands, this time crackling with electricity. Irvine didn't have to think about it to know that she was powering up thunder spells.

"So I guess you heard the whole story." Quistis said, but there was something different about her face; more appropriately it was her eyes that were different. Irvine hadn't noticed this before with Selphie (and he made a mental note to do just that), but they were a sort of hazel rather than the blue they originally were. "It was inevitable I suppose."

"I know you're somewhere in there, Quisty," Irvine started, but Quistis laughed.

"Oh please. You honestly think she can hear you? None of them can. They can't see nor feel what is around them or even what is happening to them, so I suggest you save your breath and concentrate on saving your own skin."

"You know what that one demon's planning, doncha?" Irvine asked.

"Of course; we're telepathic. I heard the entire conversation. I must say I'm not terribly impressed." Raising her arms, she grinned darkly. "But I guess that just means I have to step up my game in order to keep this body."

That said, she thrust both hands forward, the thunder spell lancing out towards Irvine, who managed to dodge the attack and shuffle to the side. The blast however, began to follow his movements and just as it was about to sheer the top of his hat, he managed to find cover behind another wall of rock.

Irvine frowned thoughtfully though; when someone cast thunder spells, they usually channelled from above and shot down like a streak of lightning; it made for a pretty effective sneak attack. This spell originated from Quistis' hands, which only happened when she was using one of her blue mage skills…

Irvine felt the colour drain from his face. _Shit; this demon knows how to use the blue magic._

"Damn right!" a voice from behind sounded before he instinctively dodged, and two narrow blasts of green energy impaled the stone where he'd been moments ago; blasting two holes into it and the wall behind it.

Irvine gulped audibly. _That was Laser Eye_.

The sharpshooter was forced to move again; Quistis just wasn't willing to stop blasting him with spell after ability; one minute the wall in front of him was frozen and the next, he narrowly avoided being hit by an acid attack. That would then be followed by another fire blast and then soon after a barrage of bullets that just shot out from her outstretched hands. Even as he fired off rounds in her direction (not to kill her; simply to incapacitate her), Irvine sincerely hoped she didn't find Degenerator or Shockwave Pulsar; he'd seen her use the former on monsters that had gotten in their way during the war, and the latter was just plain painful.

One of the bullets from the latest attack hit him in the arm and the sharpshooter was forced to roll in order to avoid another Blizzara blast; the large ice elemental attack shooting up from the ground beneath him in an attempt to impale him. It was an eerie reminder of the Sorceress' Parade in Deling City when Edea had been possessed; it had looked painful when Squall'd been hit with the element, but this ice blast was maybe ten times bigger. Irvine did not want to be on the receiving end of it.

Just as Irvine was loading another couple rounds into the Exeter, he was blasted off his feet by another Micro Missile attack, forcing him to hit the wall behind him and lose his grip on the long barrelled weapon. It spun away from him on the floor, out of his reach. Quistis took a deep breath and just as Irvine was pulling himself back up onto his feet, she opened her mouth, a spray of water catching him off guard and knocking him back into the wall. He was completely covered in water, and was forced to spit some out of his own mouth, coughing as some went down his throat into his breathing passage. He managed to pull himself together just in time to see Quistis approaching him, casting another spell.

Just as Irvine thought he was done for, he felt something sharp tug at his shoulder blades and hoist him up off the ground, where he hovered in mid air at a loss of what had just happened. He also felt something soothing roll across the gun shot graze on his arm, and when he looked he realized it was slowly repairing itself. Quistis herself looked puzzled; it looked like she'd been experimenting again and while, for the most part, it had benefited her, he'd gotten off lucky this time. He remember this ability well; it was one of Quistis' (the real Quistis anyway) favourites; Mighty Guard.

"You got lucky that time," she said calmly as she raised both hands again. "But I assure you that this next spell isn't going to tickle."

She suddenly cut herself off and screamed in pain; both of her hands had started to spark with electric energy once more, but instead of shooting out to hit Irvine like he'd expected, it was electrocuting Quistis. Irvine couldn't figure out why until he took a look at the floor; her feet – her bare feet – were wet from the Aqua Breath she'd launched at him previously. He guessed she hadn't thought about the after affects when she'd readied it.

Finally the spell dissipated and Quistis fell back onto the ground and didn't stir. Irvine managed to manoeuvre his way towards her (he never was very good when it came to float spells). A moment after his slow attempts at swimming through the air, he finally fell onto the ground, feeling a slight static pinch from the remains of the electrocute ability, and checked the instructor over. Her hands were charred from the electrocution, but fortunately she was still alive, her chest rising and falling. It helped that she had a pulse.

He checked the watch and frowned; he really didn't have much time to squander, and he figured that once this was over, he'd come back to find her; the spell had dissipated and her life wasn't in any immediate danger. Still, he knew he'd have a lot of explaining to do once she came around.

If she was back to normal, that is.

Heading back to where he'd seen Exeter land, he scooped up the weapon and checked to make sure the water hadn't damaged it. He was especially lucky, and the rounds were still in working order. Thankful he'd had the weapon outfitted with a water proof interior. Once he was positive that the gun still worked, he set off, hoping the next encounter wouldn't be nearly as painful as this.

Even as he left Quistis behind, he checked his arm, finding that the Regen that had been cast along with the Float spell had fully healed the bullet wound. He couldn't even feel it anymore and wouldn't have known it had been there at all if he couldn't remember the brief lance of pain or seen the rip in the sleeve of his trench coat.

A few more minutes of walking passed before he heard a distant thunking sound; at least he thought it was distant. A moment later, he heard it again, but it sounded like it was getting somewhat closer. It sounded a third time, and Irvine became sure of it; whatever was making that sound was definitely closing in on him. He pinpointed where the sound was coming from and crouched at the far wall opposite it, taking aim and holding his breath as he waited for his target to come out from behind the walls. It almost sounded like they were pounding the walls with something hard, but nobody was junctioned, so that wasn't even possible. He'd seen how thick those walls were; it'd take nothing short of a bomb to break them apart.

_Then again,_ Irvine thought to himself. _One of those demons nearly took out a part of the wall with Quistis' magic. I guess anything's possible down here._

Irvine wondered how Rinoa was doing; he hoped she'd somehow managed to get a hold of Edea, but there was no guarantee that they'd arrive in time. He'd just have to make due.

Suddenly, it sounded like an explosion behind him and he was forced to take cover on the opposite side of the wall, waiting as the dust cleared from the wall's collapse. Irvine was confident that he didn't want to be on the wrong end of whatever the cause of it was.

When the smoke finally began to fade, Irvine levelled his weapon as he made out a silhouette in the smoke. The figure was pretty tall, but not as tall as Irvine of course, and he couldn't tell if they had any kind of weapon that'd cause that much damage, but when the smoke finally cleared Irvine recognized the figure instantly. The only difference this time was the eye colour; instead of a metallic blue, they were more of a concrete gray. They were shifty; definitely like they were twitching at every little movement, and Irvine prayed that he wouldn't find him.

After all, there was nothing worse than a paranoid Squall; the fact that he was almost twitching was definitely not a good sign.

Even as Squall began to search through the wreckage, Irvine decided that it was time to pack up and leave. Ducking behind a nearby slab of stone, he couldn't help but notice that Squall wasn't holding onto any weapons; that had to mean he'd taken down the walls with either his fists or his feet, but neither appendage appeared to have sustained any injuries from it. If he hadn't known that the doctor had removed his junctions when he'd been admitted to the infirmary all those days ago, he'd have thought he'd still had them.

Squall continued his search, his bare feet lightly tapping the floor beneath him and Irvine suddenly decided he really didn't want to stick around. When Squall's back was turned, the sharpshooter slunk further down the hallway, hoping to avoid him at all costs. He'd never been very fond of close ranged fighting in the past, but knowing what Squall was currently capable of scared the living shit out of him.

However, just as he got out into the middle of the corridor where he thought it was safe, he heard another explosion down the hall behind him. Turning to look behind him, he saw more dust building up at the end of the hallway. He tried to duck into another corridor, but discovered to his dismay that he had to move down the hall even further. There was no way he'd be able to avoid getting caught now; and at any right his feet refused to move. His grip on the Exeter's handle tightened so that his knuckles to the tips of his fingers turned white. The smoke cleared away, and Squall stood at the opposite end, clenching and unclenching his fists; he'd spotted him.

"Found you," Squall said triumphantly in a tone that wasn't like Squall at all. It almost sounded like he'd had a Berserk spell cast on him; like the time they'd travelled to the Tomb of the Unknown King and encountered a Wendigo; kind of a monkey shaped creature that was missing a head. They'd cast the spell on Squall just because they could and it hadn't been pretty; like then, Squall seemed to want to rend things to shreds with his bare hands.

Irvine barely had time to prepare; Squall started charging right for him. Even with the images of the torn apart Wendigo surfacing to his mind, he levelled the Exeter, trying hard to stop his hands from shaking and let loose two rounds. Neither one was the dark ammo he'd put in earlier; which told him he'd still had some normal ammo left in the barrel. Both of the bullets hit their target dead on, but Squall wasn't stopping, so Irvine fired another three shots. The SeeD Commander barely flinched. Just as he'd prepared to fire off a couple more rounds, he was forced to duck as Squall swung with his right fist, hitting the wall where the sharpshooter's head had been moments ago. The wall collapsed, even as Irvine rolled out of the way and backed into the room he'd first seen Squall; the latter following closely after him.

Irvine took aim again, hitting the SeeD in the shoulder, but that didn't even faze him as he threw another punch. It landed on the ground, cracking the cement floor beneath them. Nevertheless, Irvine was up again, bolting to the opposite end of the room and firing twice, both shots having no effect at all. Squall charged again, hitting the wall and knocking it down as Irvine continued to take evasive manoeuvres.

Squall didn't seem too thrilled about Irvine's ducking and dodging tactic; in fact, he looked brilliantly pissed off about it. "Stand still so I can squash you!"

"No way in hell, man!" Irvine shot back out of reflex and fired off another round. It practically bounced off Squall's chest, who retaliated by trying to bowl him over. Fortunately Irvine dodge, landing roughly onto his side and opening fire again. Not stopping to see whether they had an affect (he gathered they did shit all), Irvine took off running down the corridor, looking back occasionally and shooting just out of the sheer instinct to protect himself. Still, they didn't seem to be doing anything at all.

Irvine guessed that the demon possessing Squall was nothing short of a berserker; anyone with half a brain woulda utilized the magic the Commander had collected over the course of the last ten months. It was kinda sad; Squall was one of the best multi ranged fighters he knew. Still, he was counting his blessing that he hadn't decided to start blasting him with Ultima.

In Irvine's experience (and from what Selphie had told him during the Sorceress War), the best way to combat brute strength was through magic, but since Irvine never actually dabbled in the art himself, he was pretty much stuck unless Rinoa suddenly emerged and decided to haul his ass outta the fire. Still, there was no guarantee that she'd be willing to cast anything against her boyfriend; possessed or not.

Still, there was a chance that the next shot was the dark ammo; if he could somehow blind him, Squall wouldn't know up from down let alone be able to see Irvine coming. And because of the state he was in, Squall wouldn't exactly be in any condition to find a way around it. It was his only chance.

So he ran into the next room and stayed his ground, believing he'd just gone Buel Shit Crazy as he waited for the SeeD to catch up. He waited for Squall to emerge in the doorway, but wasn't against keeping his eyes open in case Squall decided a wall was in his way again.

And it was a good thing too; to his immediate left, a wall crumbled by the insane super-human strength the demon was granting the Commander, and Squall stood, catching his breath, but grinning almost feral-like; it was definitely a sight Irvine never wanted to see again. Cracking his neck as if it was the only real thing that was bothering him, Squall started stalking right towards him. When he was a few feet away, Irvine took aim, sent a prayer to Hyne and pulled the trigger.

The bullet blasted out, colouring the air behind it with a darkish hue, and Irvine almost cried in relief; he'd really gotten lucky that time. The bullet exploded right in Squall's face, forcing the teenager to stagger backwards slightly, but after a moment his now black covered eyes searched frantically around the room; like he couldn't make out his surroundings anymore.

His plan had worked; now he had to get passed him, and there was no telling how long the blind affect was going to last.

Squall roared in outrage and started to charge towards Irvine, who dodged to the left. Squall must've assumed he'd moved to the right, because the wall that was in that direction was the target of a well placed punch. Trying not to think about what would've happened had it been him instead of the wall as it crumbled to the ground, Irvine stood back up and whistled shrilly. It worked; Squall's attention was grabbed and the SeeD whirled around, charging towards him.

Muttering an apology, Irvine side stepped and raised his right arm to the side, close-lining Squall in the neck and sending him sprawling to the ground beneath him. Just as he was beginning to recover, however, Irvine brought the bunt of the Exeter down on Squall's head and the SeeD stopped moving, having lost consciousness from the blow.

Quickly checking vital signs, Irvine sighed in relief when it was apparent he hadn't killed him.

_Two down; two to go,_ Irvine thought grimly to himself as he left his comrade behind. There was still Zell and Selphie to encounter and who knew what kinda tricks they had up their sleeves.

He'd gotten a little ways away when he finally checked the watch on his wrist; he had just under an hour to finish this twisted game.


	4. The Conclusion

_I just wanted to thank Frost Bite and DnD for the kind of demons I'm using. If not for those two sources, I don't think this story would've been as good. Enjoy the final chapter._

* * *

He walked for a few minutes before he heard someone else moving around; he guessed it was either Selphie or Zell and wondered just what he was walking into. Following the sound – because he knew he had to at least see who it was before moving on – he turned into a room and got the answer to at least one question. There, standing at the back of the room was Zell – still wearing his sweats from earlier that day – but when he looked up, like with the other two, Irvine noticed his eye colour had changed. Normally, his eye colour was blue like Quistis', but now all he could see was the pupil, the iris and ilk of the eye having seemingly dissolved into nothing, with the pupil being a bright red colour. It was almost like looking into a skull with skin.

The look creeped Irvine out majorly.

"Been waiting for you," Zell said, the tone of his voice grimmer and slightly darker than normal. "You shouldn't be keeping people waiting."

"Well it just so happens I've had a rather large fan base," Irvine said coolly. "Not my fault that ya'll want a piece of me."

Instead of commenting or shouting his outrage like Zell normally would've, the brawler simply raised his arms at either side and bent his wrists so that his hands were angled downward. When Irvine raised an eyebrow at this action, Zell simply grinned morbidly before the ground simply broke apart beneath them. Just as Irvine thought Zell had opened up the ground beneath them for the soul purpose of sucking him in, a large boney hand withdrew from the ground, followed by another and another. Stepping back anxiously, Irvine didn't like the looks of things when skeletal like creatures, that weren't unlike the Forbiddens that lived in the Tomb of the Unknown King or on the cliffs overlooking Esthar, were suddenly surrounding him; like those monsters, their skin had long since decayed, leaving bone behind, nearly perfectly preserved. The only meat that was left on any of them were the occasional piece of skin still wrapped around fingers or toes and even behind knee caps and elbows.

The sharpshooter almost threw up on the spot, especially when he saw a total of eight skeletal fighters were standing between him and Zell. The latter simply folded his arms across his chest and frowned thoughtfully. "This body only let me summon eight. I can normally triple that amount, but I guess beggars can't be choosers." Outstretching his right arm, he pointed towards Irvine and, almost as though they'd received the message loud and clear, the skeleton fighters started moving forwards.

Crawling up onto a slanted piece of stone wall that had crumbled over at some point, Irvine took aim and shot at the skeleton closest to him. Its head fell off and the bones crumbled to the ground, even as a second and third one clambered towards him; completely undeterred. Irvine took shots at them as well, with the same results, but soon he was surrounded. One of the skeletons managed to grab him before he could fire off another round. It nearly off balanced him enough to fall on top of them, but he managed to regain his footing and push the skeleton into the rest of the crowd. Before they could grab a hold of him again, Irvine managed to jump onto higher ground; which was actually another crumbled over wall. Somehow, Irvine got the impression that Squall paid a visit around the area before running into him.

Meanwhile, Zell wasn't making things easy for him; he kept shooting off spells in his direction; Irvine barely recognized them as Death Spells, but he was determined not to let a single one of them hit.

When he was sure he'd regained his footing, Irvine went to shoot at the nearest skeleton, but the Exeter clicked; it was empty. Cursing, Irvine dug into his trench coat and searched each individual section (when it came to ammunition, Irvine was very organized). Finding a specific type, he pulled out as many rounds as he could and loaded them into the Exeter, moving back and away from the skeletons that were reaching towards him. When the weapon was loaded once more, Irvine pointed it towards the horde of skeletons with Zell in the radius, before pulling the trigger.

Unlike his other custom made rounds, this one blasted out of the barrel and instantly exploded into a fiery flame once the oxygen surrounding them hit it. Even as it moved forward, it exploded again, this time into several burning pieces of shrapnel that connected with each and every skeleton, setting the corpses ablaze. The creatures didn't seem to care, but there wasn't much they could have done had they wanted to; a few seconds after they were engulfed in flame, they crumbled to pieces onto the ground beneath them. Looking up to see what kind of condition Zell was in, he was surprised to find the brawler practically unscathed; it was like he'd missed, but he knew he hadn't.

Catching the stray thought, Zell grinned morbidly once again before speaking, "Fire doesn't work on us."

_Shit, just what I needed,_ Irvine thought to himself helplessly. _Flame resistant demons._

Zell didn't give him a chance to recover; raising both hands again and aiming two spells (one from each hand) towards the sharpshooter. Irvine had half a mind to actually duck behind the broken slab of stone, allowing the blasts to hit them instead of him. He didn't know what spells had been cast, but he didn't really care; so long as they didn't hit him.

Long range was Irvine's specialty, but it was a pain in the ass to fight against someone who loved range as well, especially if they specialized in magic. But as long as he kept outta sight and kept his head straight, maybe he'd tire him out; after all spells wore out the caster fairly quick and Zell, like him, didn't tend to use spells all that often. The only problem was keeping himself from getting hit.

Of course the better solution would be to knock him out, but how was he supposed to get close enough to him to do that?

That's when it hit him; he still had some dark ammo left; if he could just knock him out with one of the bullets that had sleep, he'd be all set. Unfortunately, those were rare and far too few between to be of any help, and each bullet's effects were random; he didn't even know what was coming out. But even if he could somehow disable him, he could just escape.

So it all came down to silence or sleep. If he was real lucky, he'd get both.

Snapping the Exeter open, he withdrew the flame ammo he'd only just loaded in and searched his pockets for some dark ammo. When he found it, he immediately slapped them into the riffle, snapped the weapon shut and charged out, firing round after round off until he reached cover. Unfortunately for him, the first two shots missed; Zell dodging at the last second before casting another two spells. The third shot grazed the brawler, but the rest went wide; hitting the far wall just as Irvine found his cover. The blasts of magic continued, and when he was sure Zell was focussed on the stone, he jumped back out, firing off three more rounds before rolling into cover, the shots just as bad as the last ones. Reloading the Exeter, he ducked back when a death spell zoomed over his head and hit the wall. Had it been alive, it would've just died.

Hoping that the third try was the charm, he jumped back out, only this time, Zell didn't cast a spell (at least it didn't look like he did). Instead, the brawler simply outstretched his right hand before bending his fingers and thumb at the knuckle and Irvine suddenly felt a convulsing pain behind his rib cage. The pain was damn near crippling, and he nearly dropped the Exeter in his shock, but it was enough to bring him down to one knee. Zell just started moving towards him, his hand still fixed in the same position. "Hurts, doesn't it?" he asked curiously, and Irvine found that the pain was so bad he could barely swallow. "Yeah," Zell continued. "I get that reaction a lot; I usually save it for a last resort, but you just wouldn't stop. Fortunately I managed to keep watching your movements and predicted where you were headed. I'd surrender if I were you; one false move and I just might stop your heart."

The pain was almost crippling, but Irvine managed to lift the Exeter and aim it at Zell. The brawler must've been pretty confident, because he moved his fingers a fraction of an inch into his palm, and Irvine felt the bile rising into his throat. He choked it down as he took aim and pulled the trigger, the bullet flying up towards Zell's face. The brawler took an instinctive step backwards, but the bullet exploded in his face anyway.

At first, Irvine thought it was a dud, but was grateful that Zell's concentration had been broken; the pain had subsided, and he was taking lungful's of air – it'd hurt so much he could barely breathe. He coughed a couple times, but it went away after a moment when he was finally able to stand upright again. But when he looked up, he noticed that Zell was still standing and just as the brawler took his casting stance, and Irvine was absolutely sure he was going to die, nothing happened. Looking confused, Zell tried to cast the spell again, and still nothing happened.

Irvine released the breath he'd been holding, and Zell began to curse, but no sound came out; his surroundings were deathly (no pun intended) silent and it was then that Irvine figured out what'd happened; he'd gotten lucky.

Grinning broadly and tipping his hat forward, he chuckled lightly, which drew Zell's attention towards him. "Always wanted ta say this," Irvine said; he found the entire situation hilarious. The thought that he'd almost died didn't even factor anymore. "Shut the fuck up, Zell."

Zell looked furious, and actually attempted to charge at him. Irvine was, surprisingly enough, faster, and stepped away, allowing Zell to run head long into a wall and knock himself out. When he realized what had happened, the first thing he did was check his pulse; he hadn't hit his head hard enough to actually kill himself, but after he'd made sure the brawler was still alive, Irvine decided that it was time to amscray.

Once he'd taken a few steps out of the room though, he collapsed into a fit of laughter so hard it brought tears to his eyes. With everything he'd been through the last two weeks, he needed a good laugh. He leaned against the wall in one of the stone corridors, his arms propped up by his knees as he slid onto the ground beneath him. He could definitely see the look on Zell's face, and even Selphie and Rinoa's, when he told everyone what'd happened. Even close-lining Squall was pretty amusing and Quistis electrocuting herself was just something he'd pay to see.

Then again, he'd have to actually get through this maze thing if he wanted to see their reactions.

After a few minutes of just laughing his ass of, he finally picked himself up off the ground and continued down the hallway, snickering occasionally as his mind went back to the last few fights. However, the moment he heard movement up ahead, all humorous thoughts flew out of his mind as he got down to business. Gripping the Exeter tightly, Irvine stepped into the next room, only to find that it was completely empty. He checked the watch and found he had just over half an hour left before time expired. And there was still Selphie (or the demon possessing her) that he had to contend with.

He was just wondering what kind of abilities she'd picked up for herself when he sensed that someone was coming up from behind him. He jumped back and twisted around only to find some kind of image in the shadows. When he walked towards it, and was shocked to see that he was staring back at himself. But just as he was looking for the mirror, his reflection stopped copying his actions and grinned widely at him. Just when Irvine was ready to put a round into the reflection's forehead though (he was sure it was some kind of trap), the other him reached out and grabbed the sharpshooter's wrist. An instant later, Irvine felt a searing burning pain and recoiled, backing out of his reflection's reach and inspected his wrist. There imbedded in the skin was a burn mark that formed the shape of a hand – right where the doppelganger had grabbed him.

Cursing loudly, Irvine searched his pockets for some kind of bandage when he heard it; familiar laughter filled the room. The voice it belonged to was familiar, but it was the same cold laughter that wasn't associated with her at all. Whirling around as he clutched at his injury, he saw Selphie sitting crossed legged on the floor, grinning and watching him. "Figured I'd drop in with an added prop."

Irvine glared at her, and the expression on her face changed. "Aw… you're not laughing. C'mon! You have to admit it was funny."

The reflection of the sharpshooter laughed soundlessly before he disappeared.

"See? Even your reflection got a kick outta it," Selphie laughed gleefully.

Irvine glared at the after image, almost daring it to come back and laugh in his face. _It definitely _was_ something_…

Selphie sulked. "Are you mad that you got burned? Don't be such a baby about it; it was just a joke."

Rising to her feet, she folded her arms across her chest. "So you managed to find and evade the others, huh? Not only that, you knocked them out so they wouldn't follow you."

_Not entirely accurate._ However, Irvine wasn't willing to correct her.

"I'm impressed. I guess I really _did_ give you a chance after all. But now, you've gotta get by me."

When Irvine didn't respond, Selphie frowned thoughtfully. "What's the matter, Irvine? No witty retort? No idle banter? Not even a sarcastic joke? I'm shocked. I never thought _anything_ could get by that quirky sense of humour of yours."

"I'm here strictly on business," Irvine said. "Less than thirty minutes left. If I can get by you, I'm home free."

"The key word is 'if', Irvine." Selphie responded. "Don't count your chickens before they hatch."

_I thought the phrase was 'Chocobos',_ Irvine idly thought, but dismissed it; it wasn't important. At the moment, Selphie raised her arm, her finger pointed like she was holding a gun, though her index finger aimed at him and her thumb was pointed up. At first, he wondered what she was up to when a dark cloud primed itself around her index finger and she fired it off, the black cloud turning into a black arrow. Irvine had the sense of mind to duck, and when he looked back, the arrow had blown apart the wall behind him.

"I thought you said you didn't like blowing stuff up?" Irvine asked.

"I said it'd be too easy to blow stuff up with the Sorceress' power!" Selphie shot back, making strange hand signals before bending down and position the palms of both hands to the floor. Then, out of nowhere, something began to rise up from the ground. Irvine fired a couple rounds into it, but the bullets went right through, impaling the wall behind her. Then the strange black fog took shape, and it looked like a shadowy image of Selphie.

Normally for Irvine, this would have been a turn on, but under the circumstances, it was a mild annoyance.

"I'm a master at shadow magic," Selphie explained before pointing right at Irvine. The after image of Selphie charged forward, throwing a tiny fist at him that was simply too fast the dodge. Still, instead of the chest, like she'd been aiming, he caught the blow in his shoulder.

Suddenly, a cold black feeling filled him and Irvine backed off, inspecting his shoulder for any kind of damage but finding nothing. Soon afterwards, the cold feeling disappeared, but he could still remember the chill. He didn't have time to wonder idly about it though; the Selphie-clone tried to catch him with a kick, but Irvine jumped back and out of range. When the Selphie-clone went to assume a spell, he ducked behind a stone slab; he didn't even wanna think about the possibility of fighting off her special spells.

"Boo!" a voice came from beside him and when he looked he saw the _real_ Selphie (under possession of course) crouching beside him. She smiled at him before outstretching her hands with the palms facing him and Irvine was forced to jump away from cover, narrowly missing the meltdown spell she'd cast.

_Damn_ _she's fast…_ Irvine thought to herself as he fired off a round; the clone decided she was going to try and catch him off guard, but thankfully he remembered about her. He tried again, only to hear the familiar empty click that he'd been dreading. Launching himself behind cover once again, he pulled out an assortment of ammunition and loaded it into the weapon; dark ammo, some shotgun ammo and normal ammo. Once the Exeter was fully loaded, he snapped the barrel shut and rolled out from behind his cover, pulling the trigger once, twice, three times; the rounds launching out at the clone. Surprisingly enough, all three hit home; the dark ammo exploded in the clone's face, blinding her as two rounds of the shot gun ammo hit her. She disappeared in a puff of black smoke.

Turning his attention towards the real demon, Irvine shot off another three rounds; one shot gun and two regular. However, Selphie managed to dodge all three, jumping upwards onto her hands before propelling herself away from the last two shots. Frowning, Irvine tried again, emptying the Exeter before realizing that the effort was fruitless; all it'd served was to waste the bullets. Cursing, he found cover again and reloaded the Exeter.

It occurred to him suddenly that she could have just sneaked up behind him again in order to take him out but she didn't. Instead, as he found when he poked his head over his cover, she seemed to be doing the same strange hand signals once again before slamming her palms onto the ground beneath her. The bad feeling in Irvine's gut intensified when several shadows rose up off the ground, taking Selphie's form like the one previously. Deciding to opt for defence, Irvine shot at the shadow clones, hoping to get to another form of cover before any of them could hit him. Unfortunately, his shots went wild – either that or they were just too fast – and by the time he reached cover, he found that he was surrounded. Four Selphie's slid towards him and before Irvine could do anything he found himself propelled up into the air.

The sharpshooter blinked stupidly – his mind failed to process how that one had happened, but a sudden pain in his back brought him back to his senses, even as he hit the ground hard. Rolling onto his back – that part of his body protested the act – be saw the one that had apparently jumped him from behind landed almost cat like onto the ground. She rose to her natural height of 5'1" and smiled almost amicably at him. "If you don't wanna play anymore," she said simply, "I'll understand."

Irvine wasn't as agile as most SeeDs in the Garden, so rather than do some extravagant move to get himself back to his feet (like he'd seen Zell do on more than one occasion), he simply picked himself up off the ground, wincing slightly. Selphie, for her part, looked astonished – maybe she _had_ expected him to give up. Still, he tried not to give away just how much she'd hurt him, hoping he looked as though he were shaking off the injury as a mild annoyance. It sure didn't _feel_ that way, but she didn't need to know that.

"Sorry, dahlin'," he said, lazily drawling out the last word on its first syllable. "Wouldn't feel right about doin' that, given what's at stake and all."

"You know that if this continues, you're gonna get seriously hurt, right?" She said. "And I don't need to hear someone else bitch at me."

Irvine didn't think she would get close enough to do anything of the sort; the reason behind that logic simply being he refused to let it happen. Besides, he'd been watching her enough to know one thing he could do. He just didn't want to hurt Selphie's body in the process. "I'd worry 'bout that stolen skin you're struttin' around in more than about me."

"Okay," Selphie shrugged. "But I did warn you."

That being said, she and the rest of her shadow clones charged forward. Having watched her talk, Irvine knew exactly which one was the real deal, but first he needed to get rid of the copies. He unloaded his weapon; replacing some of the shotgun ammo he'd placed inside the barrel a few minutes later with a different kind before snapping the compartment closed. When he was done, he simply stood with his arms positioned against his side casually, his grip on the Exeter tightening as he simply waited. The Selphie-groupies seemed to think something was up, but they didn't slow their charge:

Exactly as Irvine had hoped.

So it was when they were close enough and confident enough that they had him that Irvine finally raised his trusty weapon and fired round after round of shotgun ammo right at them, the bullets breaking apart into bits of shrapnel and scattering into the crowd, the clones dispersing as the rounds hit. The real impostor was also in the line of fire and managed to get hit a couple times before retreating, the last of her carbon copies dissipating into puffs of smoke before disappearing entirely.

Selphie crouched down, surveying her injuries (Irvine was grateful he hadn't done too much damage), before she broke into a run, trying to circle him as she made the same hand symbols. "Oh no, ya don't!" Irvine shouted, and took aim ahead of her. However, he squeezed the trigger rapidly, the blasts almost colliding into each other in order to hit their target. But unlike the previous miss fires and wild shots, these rounds all connected; the first hit startling Selphie so badly that the other two followed suit, the resulted backlash forcing her back. Irvine emptied the rest of the chamber before reloading while she was stunned by the sudden attack. He resumed fire, hitting her once in the leg and again on either arm. From what he could see, he wasn't doing very much damage (about as much as he'd be doing were she junctioned normally), but it was enough to keep her from doin' anything funny.

However, when he was beginning to reload for round three, Selphie suddenly charged him, and his only reaction was to swing at her with the Exeter in his hand, however he wasn't nearly as quick on his feet as she. She nimbly dodged the attack, rolling onto her side and coming up from behind him. Irvine had it in mind to back away, but she suddenly manoeuvred to the left and tried to charge him again. This dance continued for a few minutes, Irvine forced to do some fancy footwork in order to keep Selphie from knocking him off his feet or grabbing him and declaring herself the victor.

Normally he'd be all for letting the gal win, but there was much more at stake.

Just as he managed to side step her again (he wasn't entirely sure how much longer he could keep it up), he felt stone brush against his arm and realized she'd been playin' him all along; he'd been backed into a corner, with Selphie guarding the only path he could take to get himself outta hot water. She must've realized this too (Irvine just knew she'd been conscious of her actions), and simply smiled sweetly again, positioning her hands behind her back. "Guess my plan worked; and I didn't hafta hurt you any more."

Just as she snatched out to grab him, Irvine managed to dive out of the way and roll so that he landed on his feet. His shoulder hurt from the sudden impact on the ground, but the cowboy was willing to deal with a little bit of pain if it got him outta the fire. Selphie frowned and charged after him, Irvine keeping the distance between them, even as he returned to reloading his weapon.

Suddenly, the watch on his wrist beeped – he'd completely forgotten about it – and when he went to check, he saw that there was only ten more seconds on the clock. He'd almost done it!

With renewed vigour, Irvine reloaded and slammed the barrel shut, continuing to back up, even as Selphie made to grab him. She was closing the distance faster than he could keep it up.

_Seven more seconds…_

However, Irvine managed to keep it up; despite the rising cramp in his side from jumpin' and dodging. Dammit to hell, he wasn't made for this sorta thing! Still he managed to fire a couple rounds, only to watch as they hit the ground in front of or behind Selphie. She continued to charge as if her life depended on it, and in a way Irvine supposed it did.

_Three more…._

Irvine leapt out of the way from a sudden sweep kick - he didn't know how he managed it but he didn't knock it – but landed awkwardly; his foot landed on it's side and the pain in his ankle had him worried for a moment, especially as he landed on the ground, the Exeter falling out of his grip and sliding across the room. He managed to move out of the way as Selphie dove to grab him, and a quick inspection of the appendage proved he'd gotten lucky. He just hoped his luck wouldn't run out. Still, Selphie was back up, and charging forward again; Irvine didn't have enough time to stand _and_ dodge; it was one or the other.

But just as she was about to end this game, his watched beeped long and annoyingly; filling the otherwise silent room with its chirp that time had officially expired.

Selphie stopped at mid charge and Irvine collapsed onto his back, breathing ragged as relief washed over him. He'd done it; somehow he'd managed to keep her away from him long enough!

In all his life, Irvine Kinneas had never thought he'd be this happy to _stay away _from a woman.

When the relief wore off, he did the only thing a sane person could do in his position; he laughed. It started off low, but it quickly grew in volume almost until the echo made it almost deafening. For the second time in less than an hour, Irvine thought he was actually gonna kill himself laughing.

Folding her arms across her chest, Selphie seemed to sulk. "Ya don't hafta rub it in," she muttered dejectedly.

Managing to gather some strength to pull himself together, Irvine pulled himself up into a sitting position and inspected his surroundings. He spotted the Exeter lying against the wall behind him and, not trusting the impostor for one minute, he slowly backed up to where the weapon was resting, grabbing it and clutching it tightly, in case she decided to try somethin'. "It's been two hours," Irvine said. "While it's been fun, I believe I managed to _not_ get caught by any of ya. So… I guess this means you'll be lettin' me and the other's go free."

Selphie sighed loudly, blowing her bangs out from in front of her in a futile attempt; they just fell back in place once more. "As much as I hate to say it, a deal's a deal. So you and the other's are free to go."

She closed her eyes and spread her arms wide and a moment later, three flashes of light emerged from within the labyrinth; one grey, one black and the final one a faint purple. The lights seemed to stay suspended in the air for a moment before suddenly dispersing; almost as though they'd never actually existed.

"There you go," Selphie said in the same kind of voice and Irvine frowned. Something wasn't right. "The deal's done."

"Aren't ya forgettin' somethin'?" Irvine asked expectantly.

Selphie seemed to think about it for a moment before shaking her head. "Nope. Not a thing."

Irvine's frown deepened and a tiny knot began to form in the pit of his stomach. "Selphie goes free too."

Selphie tilted her head to the side, a curious expression crossing her features. "Hmm… that wasn't part of the deal."

"I thought I made myself plain."

"And you did. You," she said, pointing at the sharpshooter, "and the others," she indicated inside of the labyrinth, "go free. Those were your exact words. I don't recall hearing Selphie's name come up."

Irvine stopped and thought back to when the arrangement had been made, running the conversation through his mind before his mouth suddenly went dry; she was absolutely right. He'd set her a loophole and she'd taken it and run with it. No wonder she'd seemed alright with the additional conditions. "You tricked me," was all he could think to say.

"Hey, I just followed the rules," Selphie said. "Not my fault they didn't completely suit you. Now if you'll excuse me," she turned, almost as though she expected to walk away. "I have bodies to find for my friends. As promised, you guys are all off limits. The game was fun, even if I _did_ lose, but maybe we can have a rematch sometime."

"You don't think you're walkin' outta here," Irvine said and Selphie frowned.

"Well, why not? I don't have any other business here," Selphie mused before her expression turned thoughtful. "Oh! I know. You want a goodbye kiss. Sorry Irvine, as much as I wanted your body for mine, I'm not really interested. But I'll tell you what I'll do. I won't make you go through the trouble tracking down your friends."

With a snap of her fingers, the walls suddenly vanished from around them and the bodies of Squall, Quistis and Zell were laid out on the ground in front of them. They were all still unconscious, but the slow rising of their chests indicated that they were still alive. "Zell and Quistis should be okay when they wake up," Selphie said cheerfully, even as Irvine checked them out for himself. "But Squall'll be a little on the cranky side; I don't think he's eaten in the last few days. Heck," she said, cradling her own stomach. "I know _I_ haven't. Then again, us demons don't really _need_ to, so we kinda tend to forget.

"I have to admit though, it's been fun," Selphie concluded before waving at Irvine. "Have a nice life."

She moved to climb the ladder that would take her back into the Fire Cavern; however, she suddenly jumped backwards and squawked in surprise when a bolt of electricity shot down. Selphie jumped backwards, seemingly confused for a minute before shouting back up through the hole in the floor, "That wasn't very nice!"

Irvine had no idea who she was talking to until he saw a familiar figure jumping down from the hole. He'd recognize that blue flapping coat anywhere. However, it was the second figure who actually took the time to descend the ladder who surprised him with her presence; she had long dark hair; much longer than the previous girl's, and was wearing a long black dress and a pair of black shoes.

"Sorry I'm late," Rinoa said as she gestured towards the elder woman behind her. "Company."

The Sorceress seemed to take notice of the three prone bodies on the ground, and Irvine spoke before she could voice her concern. "They're still alive. It's a long story."

"Oh, believe me, I've heard," Rinoa explained, and the woman stepped forward. She was only just slightly taller than Rinoa's 5'3", but she didn't need height to be intimidating.

To his surprise, Selphie took a step back, and when he adjusted his position, he could tell that she had frozen in shock; her mouth working itself open and closed, but no sound coming out.

"Hello again," Edea Kramer spoke for the first time since arriving. "I had hoped to never see you again."

Selphie remained quiet for a moment, but that moment passed quickly when she finally muttered something. Irvine, however, was close enough to hear it; "Oh shit."

Irvine glanced from Selphie to the woman who had raised him at the orphanage before turning to look at Rinoa. He was pretty sure he looked as confused as he felt. "You two know each other?"

"Oh yes," Edea said, her tone razor sharp. "I met this little imp years ago, when she tried to take over my husband's body."

Irvine gaped; absolutely speechless before whirling on Selphie. She'd definitely forgotten to inform him of her last visit.

"Would you want to explain what happened? Or shall I?" Edea continued.

When Selphie failed to say anything, Edea nodded. "I thought not. When I realized what had happened, I managed to kick her out of Cid's body. He does not remember a thing, before you ask, and I would prefer it to stay that way. However, she did not appear to enjoy my methods."

"_That's _why you don't like Sorceresses," Irvine said. Selphie frowned, but still refused to say anything.

"And _now_ you think you can get away with taking my children," Edea said and Irvine could tell she was _furious_. "When Rinoa and Nida arrived at my house I was a little alarmed, but when they explained the situation I just knew who would be behind such a thing."

"I managed to get the other's back to normal," Irvine said, feeling like a little rat. But he didn't really care. "But she beat me with a loop hole, and now she won't let Selphie go."

"Hey, he phrased it," Selphie argued. "I'm just following my part of the bargain. I'm perfectly within my rights."

"You have the right to remain silent," Edea snapped. "And to release Selphie."

"And what do _I_ get out of it?" She suddenly piped up. Irvine didn't like the look on her face.

"Don't start that with me," Edea said.

"Aw c'mon! Just one little game? It'll be fun, I promise."

"No games," Edea said. "Release Selphie."

"How's about this; I promise to release Selphie if you just play one little game with me." Selphie pleaded. "You know me, Edea; I'm a being of my word. If I say I'll do something, then I'll do it."

"Or, you could just let her go."

One thing that Irvine remembered from living at the orphanage was that you didn't ever argue with Matron; not even Squall could hold a candle to her – if Matron told you to do something, you damn well did it. It didn't even matter about the consequences; Matron just had that kind of effect on people.

Selphie seemed to size up Edea, who didn't even take notice before turning to look at Rinoa and then finally at Irvine. Her frown deepened and the expression on her face darkened considerably; Irvine didn't even want to _think _about what she was planning, but she finally just spun around on Edea. "You know what? No. I'm not gonna. I tried to make a compromise, but you just want it all, don't you? Well _you_ have to learn that you can't always get what you want; you have to make sacrifices."

"And you have to learn that playtime is over,." Edea said, nodding in Rinoa's direction. Looking a little bit nervous, Rinoa stepped forward, and raised her arms from their stationary position. Irvine could see the beginning sparks of magic dancing in her palms and apparently Selphie could too, because she stepped back even further.

"No fair!" She shouted in desperation. "That's cheating!"

"You should have thought of that before coming back here," Edea said. Rinoa had simply begun to chant something – Irvine assumed it was a spell Edea had taught her on the way back from Centra, but she was talking too fast; he couldn't get a hold of what she was saying.

"You're gonna be sorry," Selphie remarked, turning to look back at Irvine almost as though he could stop them. He damn well wasn't going to though. "If you keep this up, you're not gonna like what happens."

"I think we can manage with the consequences," Edea said. It was the same tone she used to speak to them if they tried to talk back when they were just kids.

Rinoa's chanting suddenly stopped and she opened her eyes, the pupils and iris were gone, leaving the spooky white image of her eyes, even as electricity began to spark from her fingers. The sparks left her fingers, but they didn't appear to go any further than that. That didn't stop Selphie from dropping to the ground and convulsing; kinda like those phoney exorcism shows Irvine had seen when he was younger. After a moment, she stopped, taking in lungfuls of air as she attempted to catch her breath, and for a minute, Irvine thought it'd failed.

"It's working," Edea said, contradicting his thoughts. "It's almost done."

However, Selphie looked like she was trying to tell them something; Irvine wasn't sure the girls could hear her, but he could barely make out her voice. She seemed to realize this as well, because she suddenly turned to him, her expression totally serious as she spoke; "You're all going to die down here."

With that said, she gasped one last time before falling limp.

No one moved for a moment; no one knew what to _do_ after that, but once that moment was gone, Irvine moved over to her in order to check her over; she was still breathing, and a little battered and bruised, but otherwise perfectly healthy.

Before he had any time to remark, though, the temperature in the room increased sharply; it was almost as if someone turned on an oven. Edea and Rinoa seemed to notice too; both exchanging puzzled glances before Irvine noticed why the room had looked so strange when he'd first arrived;

The room had been covered completely in shadow.

But now that the demon possessing Selphie had gone, her magic was beginning to wear off. Irvine became painfully aware of the fact that Ifrit had once lived down here; if they didn't get out right away, they were all going to roast alive.

_And the little bitch knew it,_ Irvine thought to himself bitterly.

Edea and Rinoa seemed to have come to the same conclusion, because they immediately ran towards the others, who were still lying prone from where the demon and positioned them. Pulling Selphie's body across his shoulder in the firefighter's position, he immediately moved over to help his Matron and the Sorceress. But even with magic, there was no way the three of them were gonna get the four of _them_ out of there, not without suffering a few casualties.

It had come down to which one they were willing to let roast alive.

Just as he was about to give into the panic that was rising up, all three of them heard a familiar voice coming up from above. Irvine'd completely forgotten about him, but now he was grateful that the SeeD was here.

"Hey!" Nida shouted from above. "You need some help?!"

"YES!" all three of them responded, all sounding irritable.

It took a few minutes, but they managed to hoist all four unconscious teenagers up through the hole before following suit themselves; and not a moment too soon; just as Irvine pulled himself up from the underground room, the ladder finally melted into the molten walls surrounding it. There was no way _anyone_ was making it back downstairs, and Irvine sincerely hoped no one forgot anything.

Just to be safe, Irvine double checked that he was still holding the Exeter before sighing in relief – it was safe and sound.

"So…" Nida said, looking from Rinoa, Edea and Irvine to the others, a confused expression forming. "Anyone feel like explaining what just happened?"

…

It took a little time, but between the four of them, they managed to get everyone back to the Ragnarok, where it was waiting just outside of the Fire Cavern. Apparently, Nida had been parking the former Esthar flag ship while the girls had run off in order to help Irvine. As soon as he was positive the ship wasn't going anywhere, he'd followed them inside and Irvine couldn't have been any more grateful.

On the way back to the Garden, they all swapped their own instances of what had happened in the last two hours. Irvine related the events that had taken place in the Fire Cavern, and when he was done, Edea had gone into further detail of her own mishap with the demon (apparently the lead demon could've been considered as a kid, which sort of explained her inability to tell a lie). Apparently, the demon hadn't appreciated the enraged former Sorceress going ballistic on her (though Irvine had a hard time even picturing Edea being even remotely furious – when he'd seen her angry in the past, she was calm and collected). By the time they'd finally touched down in front of the Garden, they were all wondering whether the demon possession had been a coincidence – after all the ones she had been targeting had all been raised by the one person she'd had contact with in the past.

Xu hadn't been too thrilled when she'd discovered that both Irvine and Rinoa had gone off on their own (and breaking out of the Garden during quarantine hadn't helped matters much), though Edea had been able to placate the Lieutenant Commander, if only slightly. Irvine gathered that he was still in hot water for his latest infraction, but also figured he could deal with whatever it was she threw at him; all that was left for them to do was to wait for the others to wake up, so they could fill them in on what the hell had happened.

Doctor Kadowaki had asked about the additional injuries they all sustained ("they weren't there during _my_ watch," she'd said); particularly the burns on Quistis' hands and the shallow bullet wounds on Selphie's arms and legs, but had, nevertheless, treated them without complaint. By the time the other's had awoken, Irvine had been mentally practicing his explanation for their current state, but nothing sounded even remotely convincing. The truth just made him sound like an even bigger nut, but in the end that's what he'd gone with.

The Doctor had refused to let any of them out of the infirmary for the following week after that (Squall had protested about the work he needed to do and Quistis complained that she had classes to teach, but their arguments had gone ignored for the most part). Selphie had been the most confused when she'd finally come to, which was to be expected (for a moment she thought they were still in Timber).

Now, a week after the entire incident, Irvine and Selphie were lying in the quad, watching the clouds over head despite the fact that the sun was beginning to set. They'd been lying like that for the better part of the day (aside from eating of course). The only time they had been interrupted was when Quistis had urged them to head upstairs with her – apparently Squall and Xu had gotten into a shouting match with each other regarding his actions before he was attacked (of course Quistis had been exaggerating; Squall rarely ever shouted). They had all found it rather humorous when Squall had calmly inquired if she planned to have him fired from a position he hadn't wanted in the first place before finally retreating into his office and locking the door firmly behind him leaving Xu shocked and, for once, speechless.

Even though it'd been a while since they'd witnessed that particular performance, Selphie still giggled on occasion. She'd finally changed out of the clothes she'd been stuck in for the last two weeks and had opted for a pair of blue jeaned suspenders with a white tank top underneath – it reminded him a lot about the red jumper she'd worn when she was a lot younger. But whenever she started snickering, Irvine found himself grinning at the memory as well. Squall wasn't about to live this one down for a long time.

"Oh yeah!" Selphie said suddenly, sitting up and directing Irvine's attention towards her. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a white envelope that looked blank aside from something scribbled along the front.

Upon closer inspection, Irvine recognized the messy script as his own name.

"I got it before we left the third floor," Selphie explained cheerily as she handed it over to the sharpshooter. "The Headmaster gave it to me, since you'd already left. I meant to give it to you earlier, but it sorta slipped my mind."

"What do you think it is?" Irvine asked, looking it over before lifting it up to the light. Unfortunately, he couldn't see through the envelope.

Selphie shrugged before grinning suddenly. "Maybe it's got something to do with your transfer!"

Irvine thought about it for a moment before finally inspecting the handwriting. It was Cid's almost illegible handwriting, however Irvine also knew that he rarely ever received mail, most of it with an additional postage stamp. This one didn't have one. But the more Irvine got to thinking, the more he remembered that Galbadia Garden was the only place in the world he would be receiving mail, and what better way to give it to him at Balamb Garden then to forward it to the Headmaster, have him print it off and deliver it himself? "Ya know, I think you're right."

"Well don't just sit there staring at it! Open it! I wanna know what it says!"

Irvine stared at the envelope in his hands for a moment, mulling it over until he suddenly gripped the top of the object with both hands and, with only a little bit of force, ripped the envelope – and it's contents – in half.

"What'd you do that for?" Selphie asked, hitting him in the shoulder. Fortunately she wasn't junctioned, so it didn't actually hurt him. "That might've said the transfer was accepted!"

Irvine gave her a blank expression before she suddenly sputtered. "Don't you even wanna know?"

"Frankly speaking, no," Irvine said. When Selphie went to argue, he pulled her against him, wrapping his right arm around her even as she snuggled up to him. "I know I've been waitin' for this for a while, but I think I just realized that I don't need a piece of paper to tell me where I can or cannot stay. Even if they don't sanction it, I ain't goin' nowhere. And I don't care what they say."

"Aw, Irvy… well either way, I'm glad you're staying anyway."

They stayed like that for a moment before Selphie sighed heavily, and pulled herself up, so that his arm was no longer around her. "Did you just cop a feel?"

Irvine grinned. "Can't blame a guy for tryin', can ya?"

* * *

**Fin**

* * *


End file.
